Its fifty miles back
after being away
There’s a brand new baby
at home in the hay
Christmas and New Year’s
have come and gone
Now I wonder
if I still belong
I’m biding some time
before seizing a moment
My eyes and ears are
quite frankly wide open
This one little line
repeated so trite
“He looked like Churchill
what an awful sight”
Hurt and angry
and feeling unwanted
I dropped the bomb
“Was I born…or adopted?”
A flurry of answers
came back with a scream:
“So what’s the difference
You see what I mean?”
“That’s all behind you
just look ahead”
“Things were hard enough
with your hair so red”
Descramble a name
which reads like the war
Only one letter short
to name three babies more
After his birth
by about the sixth week
My adoption was sealed
I lived like a freak
Taken for a ride
I was four years old
“…going to see a lawyer”
that’s all I was told
Neighbour at the door
with blood on her dress
A birth had occurred
oh, what a mess |
“When you have a baby…”
(I’m enlightened at four)
“…they cut you open”
-I imagined her floor-
Speaking of floors
have I ever said,
that toilet training
was all in her head?
Put down some newspaper
and make him sit there
That was her method
‘cause she didn’t care
This is for sure
That baby…was tummy
(So whatever happened
to my very first mummy)
For the next six years
Until my departure
I served in the pantry,
The cupboard and parlour
“Stand in the corner,
get down on your knees!”
Lie in that bed
full of puke and green peas
Abandoned! Runover!
and whipped with wet clothes
Why do you ask
for a nice piece of prose?
Soap in my mouth
and clothes-pins on ears
They bought two straps
and whipped me for years
She’s thirty-nine all over
from her head to her toe
My God…I’m packed
I have to go
Beware of the lies
and any old secret
There was no stork
just a big fat egret.
-Epilogue-
Death is my mother
our reunion at hand
Adopt me not!
this is my stand. |
