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BABY
TALK
You
lie on your back,
frog
legs up in the air,
arms
a-loll (occasional twitch),
and
you talk to the tree up
in
the window, tree-window,
with
a gargle, a tonsilled R,
with
a squawk which larks up
to a screech of car brakes,
with
a mmyaah with more smack
than a competent glutton’s,
with
a needle-of-wire weenie aaghhh
stretched
from larynx to tree-top
for
the rain to play on.
Your
conversation is like
the
cut-loose-from-meaning words
I
utter in dreams when I enter
a
radio debate by my pillow.
There
is no connection, just us
gabbing
in a candle-wax mansion,
imitating
the Others, having our say,
contrapuntal,
whether or not
they
understand, whether or not
anyone
will let us in.
Alan
Marshfield
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