Your secret language is peppered with pat-a-cake and finger wagging,
You are urgent, emphatic,
Indecipherable.
Hand upon hip,
Shrugging shoulders.
A foreign exchange student
With no translator…
I catch a word here, a word there, a sentence? Counting?
Oh my! Is she counting?
"Mama, mama" is poetry to my ears, who knows the masterpieces you are writing as I nod stupidly?
"What do you want?" I ask.
You are indignant,
Baffled by my ignorance,
You gesticulate wildly in the direction of the window, the door, the ceiling, the floor…
What's that? A song? A dance? A sleeping bunny? A twinkling star?
I am bewildered, captivated by your wide-eyed wonder, a constant babbling flow of new shapes and sounds rolling around your mouth, you taste each syllable with your tongue, your gummy teeth and dribble.
You offer up delicious verses from your rosy cheeks mixed with sloppy kisses.
Sweet gifts to savour and recall in years to come. They will not last forever.
Sweet Gifts
Published
Claire Sanders Poetry 