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THE
BIG ISSUE
Great
to have the translating angel
at
your side, to tell you that love is
in
the snap of Max in an angle
between
the settee’s folded mattress
half-hidden,
where she has to declare
loud
to his laugh that he isn’t there.
The
whisper in your ear is that you
could
feel the same joy for all children,
for
the working daughter-mothers who
live
in remote, antipodean
spots
on the globe, for whom you do not
feel
more than a draught from the wainscot.
Ask
how to have your love translated
to
the permeable girl whose hands
tout
The Big Issue through rain instead;
to
those kids fly-blown in the tented sands.
Why
is the heart so weak, asks your ghost,
that
it lifts but for homefolk? At
most.
Alan
Marshfield
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