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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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