Poem - Contact Hours

Come the cold hour of the child gone.

The gone hour leaks heat and light.

Try remembering the first (but why?)

The orchestration. The procedure

burning to shape. A coming or going

(which was it? Which house was it?).

The dialogue of hands and look.

And look. Yes. At the child. Changing light.

Evening. Lights going out

when they should be going on.

What is lost? (Admit it, that’s how it

Feels. That’s it). The shape of his love.

(C’mon, c’mon keep going. That’s it)

Broken, interrupted; uncircled. Pigged

in the middle, between selves. Complicated.

(What did the child say?) Startled into

zig-zagged words. ‘I hate love’, the child said.

And re-said to quiet questions

at little pig fingers twining a half-sucked

sweat shirt cord as evening came.

James A Bullion Revised September 2010