Child with a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park
(Photograph: Diane Arbus, 1962)
Your eyes
like two tiny bombs
about to defuse,
your limbs
from the wood
of the original
Pinocchio, stark
in the holocaustal
shadow of a tree,
the shell-shocker
of Central Park
with skinned knees,
a little, blonde Gandhi:
With one hand gripping
a war toy, the other,
a deformed fist, gestures
to raise the eyelids
of a country.
They tell me
They tell me
how in your body,
like a truth,
bandies
the real grenade.
One shoulder strap, un-
slung, asks for
symmetry.
There is none.
Brute prophet, you,
diced effigy,
I have met you
a thousand times
picking shrapnel
from the sawdust
after the circus.
Cute bastard, you,
O mute poet,
I have known you
always in just
the dichotomy
of my tongue.
– paul morse