Chainsaw Music
by Pippa Little
And when you were small
we stepped on shadows-only
for three blocks,
our crazy hopscotch
in dusty afternoons
that smudged our hems,
made us smell of road I was big enough to reach you
plums snarled in a shark-tooth fence
to jam their maroon glut later
between each other’s lips –
we listened for chainsaw music
behind Lister’s wood yard,
ran away unscreaming
from his watchdog’s yawn
your shoes shone
and your mother loved you:
perhaps God won’t mind
if I pretend to be a church
when you lie down
in the imaginary of here,
the two of us so tired
and over the railway, always,
the unavoidable house,
all its windows open.
Gyroscope Review 15
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