Child Among Metal Sculptures

Roll the metal sculptures out;

Shake out their gnarled limbs;

Loosen their terrible torsos;

Let the air be filled with horrible clankings;

Let it grow rank with sulphur smells

And be splattered with blue bruises and yellow flames.

True they scare the children,

But the tortured faces are necessary I’m afraid

And digestible if spied from the laced shadows

Under the trees of a bright afternoon.

Unfold your hand dear one

And you will find in it the curled nature of all beginnings,

Pink and shy,

Longing, perhaps, for the absence of light.

The boy’s copper hair is like a mist covered sun,

Such a bold red to be exhibited before these consuming engines.

Keep him back here, behind us,

Where his eyes, round as moons,

Can examine the grass and bits of stick, his playthings.

Ours are gone now,

But this boy, see how grave he is, see his pale, shining skin.

No human heart can resist him,

None can avoid becoming victims of his loveliness, his beauty.