Jenny Swann
Leaving
One day, years later, when you’re both
grown up, the truth will dawn -
that what you’ve always thought of here
as ‘home’, we wanted out of.
Now, like villains in waiting, we prepare
to break the news that you must say goodbye
to the childhoods you will never be able to get back to,
say goodbye to thinking the world would be forever thus:
long summer-sultry walks beside the still canal,
with black and crimson barges gliding past
and the water leading straight ahead,
as if to suggest we knew where we were going.
All the while you felt yourselves so safe in our care
we went on planning into the late, dark hours -
how to ease you, loose you gently,
from the landscapes of your lives,
as you lay deep asleep in bed
and silent herons slowly flapped across the night.
Page(s) 26
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