Dissolved in traffic
we forget ourselves
Metal and muscle of bone, of beast
Marrow of bloom
and whip-quick flapping of pigeon wings
When father coughs his crackling logs,
we know he arrives, we hide away our games

why don’t you study, why don’t you study, where have you been

So terrified of the world he,
with his sky-shaking speech.
father, father
what have you seen?

My limbs twitch and eyes flee
He knows not what to say, and we
never learned.
Taut skin aged to crease, and all that clover smoke

and dust from road,
It sits so stout in his placid gaze
I sink, I sink.
Say, father, father, will you not leave?

Dissolved in traffic—
Gyres of grey and their loosened rings
mimicked by the reeling of kites
So long he roamed
Within those slithering maps
almost became,
almost them.

Memorised the city on his very palms.

Father, father, I never could learn
the twist and twists and turns of its trails

The city got lost and I,
And I, oh— I

The whispers fade
of footsteps strange, and closed are hearts
in breathing reliefs
father, father,
What have you learned; father, father
we become ourselves
father,
The birds all settle, the metal melts, the
noises die, the traffic, oh, the traffic
your good old mistress, we forget of it—
father, father,
What have you learned