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John High
Her hand revealed a humpty-dumpty smallness, something he had not witnessed
before. Egg-shells, splintered stones, this tossed-aside yet persistent
dreaming. A child, the father's child, and there she stood at the corner
with three hickety dolls, a toy fire truck, the white & black teddy
bears by a windmill. Why meditate on that which eludes the imagination,
or on that which is gone? the ghost had said. The first word came in
drunkenness
before she was born. The voice itself singing in the uterus & the father
had stepped back, astonished-for the first time absent of any fear or loneliness.
A dog howling on the edge of Time. Shank blue leaves on the trees & the child
took his hand, pointed toward the curtainless window looking out on the Kremlin.
She counted all the king's faces & all the king's men & every part of
her face began to shine. A first word, father. The legs of the chair prancing.
A peach lying on the floor by the graffitied wall and suddenly all of the toys
alive again! She was the one who showed the monks here, back to this road. And he
had stumbled into this plain too, unknowingly. Once upon a time. Before & after
the great fall. Naturally, the road had become a speech & the speech
spooked him & all but one of the monks who escorted the child. And now she was smiling. So childish, papa. You are so childish. As he walked toward the door. And once again we ask, could you with certainty object to this buckle on our shoes!
John High is the author of Ceremonies, Sometimes Survival and the lives of thomas. A Fullbright Fellow in Moscow from 1991-1994, he has translated several volumes of contemporary Russian poetry. He was one of the founding editors of Five Fingers Review in 1982, and the senior editor until 1996. |