Carol Thornton
Neatly snapping
It’s not as if a black tumour is tentacling among
the synapses we worked so hard to develop,
as I provided arachidonic acid in trace amounts
in the middle of the night, rocking in the nursing chair;
as I printed black and white contrasting patterns off the ’net;
as he studied them, his brown eyes darting from square to square;
as both of us said the words out loud at every interaction:
breast, bath, yellow, a-vo-ca-do,
happy, share.
And when he settles into the always-unmade bed,
kicking the astronauts into place, pulling the wrinkles out
of the planets, and the duvet up to his chin, it’s as if he is safe.
No drunken stepfather will hurl him to the floor
at two a.m. There are batteries in the smoke alarm.
The refrigerator’s continual hum is muffled by plenty.
It’s little things. That hissing sound
of Loser from the burly boy in football kit,
the six new pencils from his rucksack, neatly snapped in half
in the circular knot-hole in the school-yard’s picnic bench,
the pale bruising on his shoulder where they shove him
against the bricks at home time.
And this morning, the deputy head, placing her folder
on the table between us, as she tells me
she’s seen him playing with other lads at lunchtime
and she can assure me that he’s happy here.
the synapses we worked so hard to develop,
as I provided arachidonic acid in trace amounts
in the middle of the night, rocking in the nursing chair;
as I printed black and white contrasting patterns off the ’net;
as he studied them, his brown eyes darting from square to square;
as both of us said the words out loud at every interaction:
breast, bath, yellow, a-vo-ca-do,
happy, share.
And when he settles into the always-unmade bed,
kicking the astronauts into place, pulling the wrinkles out
of the planets, and the duvet up to his chin, it’s as if he is safe.
No drunken stepfather will hurl him to the floor
at two a.m. There are batteries in the smoke alarm.
The refrigerator’s continual hum is muffled by plenty.
It’s little things. That hissing sound
of Loser from the burly boy in football kit,
the six new pencils from his rucksack, neatly snapped in half
in the circular knot-hole in the school-yard’s picnic bench,
the pale bruising on his shoulder where they shove him
against the bricks at home time.
And this morning, the deputy head, placing her folder
on the table between us, as she tells me
she’s seen him playing with other lads at lunchtime
and she can assure me that he’s happy here.
Page(s) 61
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