The Alices
I said he was brillig and I meant it.
He stood in the hall of a friend's house
offering extra as simply as a hostess
carrying crockery, the only one of us
who has actually fought the jabberwock,
whose face we see on News at Ten,
whose name is called at tribunals, who defies
James Naughtie on Today. He talked
about mome raths, saying hesitantly,
'If the raths don't outgrabe.'
I loathed seeing him like that, stooping
below somebody's lintel, being slithy.
'It's not about gyring,' he snapped.
But it was. Later he told me how,
after a tough meeting, in the distance
he'd see me climbing out of a car,
my body suggesting something else to save.
The houses our set restore fetch fortunes.
Is that better behaviour? A brillig affair!
So special a person to have taken to wabe.
I thought, they all do it, the toves.
The tension, the criticism they get
for neglecting their children, the fear
of borogroves. We support them,
us Alices, but we're mome. 'To me,
you could never be mome,' he said.
'Whatever you decide,' as he left.
He stood in the hall of a friend's house
offering extra as simply as a hostess
carrying crockery, the only one of us
who has actually fought the jabberwock,
whose face we see on News at Ten,
whose name is called at tribunals, who defies
James Naughtie on Today. He talked
about mome raths, saying hesitantly,
'If the raths don't outgrabe.'
I loathed seeing him like that, stooping
below somebody's lintel, being slithy.
'It's not about gyring,' he snapped.
But it was. Later he told me how,
after a tough meeting, in the distance
he'd see me climbing out of a car,
my body suggesting something else to save.
The houses our set restore fetch fortunes.
Is that better behaviour? A brillig affair!
So special a person to have taken to wabe.
I thought, they all do it, the toves.
The tension, the criticism they get
for neglecting their children, the fear
of borogroves. We support them,
us Alices, but we're mome. 'To me,
you could never be mome,' he said.
'Whatever you decide,' as he left.
Page(s) 65
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