Robyn
They called me Robyn. How did they know from the very start
that the murmuring beat of my infant heart
would not conform to the rhythms of my brothers’?
One no different from the other,
and insensible to the smart
sting of thorns on the rocky ground. Each of us, it seems, has his part
to play; theirs is earthbound, like our father’s, their feet planted in the dirt.
But I love the sky, its incandescence, its infinity, its colors.
And they called me Robyn.
The naming of children is a fine and subtle art.
Parents must consider everything the name imparts.
Was it merely accident or the instinct of a mother
that mine hints at altitude and air, flight and feather?
Whether luck or Fate—Fortune’s sly, unyielding counterpart—
they called me Robyn.
AND here is the man
Who lives in the cottage
That’s built near the river
That runs through the forest
He calls himself Jack
And here is Jack’s axe
With its bright-sharpened tongue
And its bright-sharpened will
And its head-banging anger
Its terrible temper
Its loathing of rest
And this is Jack’s saw
With its sharp crooked teeth
And its lunatic grin
And its sickening song
And insatiable greed
And its obsessive need
To go forth
and come back
To go forth
and come back
To go forth
and come back
To go forth
and come back
AND day after day after day after day
Jack swings the sharp axe
And pulls the sharp saw
And curls the tongues
And tramples the eyes
And deafens the ears
And brings the trees down
He wants to know why
He has seven sons
When night after night after night after night
He falls on his knees
And clasps the scarred hands
That hold the dark beads
And bows the big head
That holds the dark eyes
And shuts out the noise
Of his sons in their sleep
And prays for a daughter