Speaking in Tongues

Can I forgive the youth in the park

who plucks out a rose for the laugh?

Well I never!

Can I forgive the mother who shouts at a child?

Well I never did!

Can I forgive a girl who leads-on a boy?

You don’t say!

Can I forgive a boy who leads-on a girl?

Shock, horror!

Can you forgive the surgeon who looks in the eyes

of the man in the bath with his burns

and the doctor, sighing, turns his head

not knowing the nurses had worked up some hope

and who turn on the man with a tongue-lash to re-kindle fire

into love, and then dress down the doc with their words?

A moment

Stag foraging:

white forefeet

the work of

a master:

why would the hunter

creep through longer

grass to focus

your chest?

And where has the

doe gone, quartering

further back

in the green glen?

Until she wanders

out and touches

nose to soft nose

upwind

taking a chance

together and enticing

him back under cover

of high green shrubs.

The hunter’s finger stretches,

turns, determines now what

these two wastrels

will become.