Here's where it all started - Lines Review 111

THREE NURSERY POEMS

OUT OF IT

I see from his file
(which is three lines
on a piece of paper
stuck high on the wall with a tack)
that he is four
and that his mother and father
are alcoholics.

He tells me
that his father is
a Fireman,
a Tractor Driver,
and is the man who
sees to the schools,
meaning that he is the man
who knocks the fences down.

I am his friend.
I am Andy
who lets out the tunes
which are inside the piano.

On the last Thursday
I tell him that, tomorrow,
I am going away.
After a moment,
he looks up from his sand pie.
"I'll never forget your name, Andy," he says.

I wish
I
was four.

ABSTRACT

Today, we are making a frieze.
A frieze of things that make a noise.
A loud noise.
Or a soft noise.
There are cut out pictures of
an electric drill,
a piano,
a wristwatch.

Christopher
sticks a blank piece of paper
on the wall.

MEMORIES

Ring a Ring o Roses
round and round we all fall down
the circle ending up
where it started.

And now the music has stopped.
The lid
of the piano
is locked.
William
presses his eye
against the keyhole
to see
if he can see the tunes.