Body Language

I can remember

All the times

My mother

Watched me

Silently,

Listening,

Her feet

Pointed

Towards me

–

And all

The times

My father

Impatiently

Shifted

Them

Away from

My sight.

–

How She

Posed

Her Neck

To My

Full sight

–

A pose

Of love

Visible

Only

To Her

Lonely,

Hurting

Little boy;

–

While

My father

Kept

His invisible

Under

Sixty years

Of collars.

–

How she

Greeted me

Always with

Palms up

Entreating touch

–

And an offering

Of a

Whispered idea

Of my

Better self;

–

While my father

Was a

Palms down

Authoritative,

Blindly confident

Man

–

Who kept

Every secret,

Every lie,

Every praise

Away.

–

Curiously neither

Picked

Their fingers

Or twiddled

Their thumbs,

–

Nor gave me

A thumbs up,

A thumbs down.

–

Just gazed me

With a fixed

Steady stare

–

That said

All her love

Every day

She was alive

And his

Seventy years yon.