JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

I watch you, blue eyed child

impish child, Till Eulenspiegel

 

Hopscotching over cracks

dancing between crevices

 

Treading carefully in streets and

sidewalks of Germany, fields of Austria or Poland

 

You who feeds fluttering birds

emaciated cats

 

Your pockets always filled

with seeds and breadcrumbs

 

Tiptoeing in rebuilt walkways so as not

to step on any errant ant

 

innocent, compassionate child

 

Your flaxen hair your pale blue eyes

your history recited once a year

 

then thrust back in a bottom drawer

together with a flag a bible

 

Some sticks of unsucked bubblegum

a handkerchief with which you

 

once tried unsuccessfully to

wipe some stains some horrors

 

that sometimes wake you in the night