Neil Ferguson
The Boy
who is really a man,
whose talk lurches
from one safe thing
– stepping, cautious,
on skiddy stones
over the torrent –
to another, understands
he has a condition
that will never go away.
Goblins and hobgoblins
whisper into his inner ear
from Wernike’s area
where, apparently,
certain neurones are missing
and the brain guesses
wrong again and again.
The boy who had been noisy,
maddeningly beautiful
with a cracking smile
and a girlfriend’s tenderness,
agog with curiosity,
is now a man who mows the lawn,
stacks crates and waits
for something to happen.
whose talk lurches
from one safe thing
– stepping, cautious,
on skiddy stones
over the torrent –
to another, understands
he has a condition
that will never go away.
Goblins and hobgoblins
whisper into his inner ear
from Wernike’s area
where, apparently,
certain neurones are missing
and the brain guesses
wrong again and again.
The boy who had been noisy,
maddeningly beautiful
with a cracking smile
and a girlfriend’s tenderness,
agog with curiosity,
is now a man who mows the lawn,
stacks crates and waits
for something to happen.
Neil Ferguson is the author of a collection of short fiction, Bars of America, and three novels, most recently English Weather (Orion). He was shortlisted in 2001 for the Poetry Review Geoffrey Dearmer Prize.
Page(s) 21
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