Thursday, June 14, 2012


before a parade is staged
by jeremy davies

‘I’m Botswana,’ he says,
shows me a coloured-in flag
pasted to a stick.

‘Do you know where that is?’

He nods,
his ocean eyes omnipotent,
bottom lip confidently bit.

The parent in me asks:
‘So where?’

And the answer is so supremely right
that nothing else from that time
on could ever do it injury.

‘It’s in room three.’

‘Of course!’

Wet with my shadow,
he cocks his head,
gifts me with a grin,
and says: ‘What’s funny?’