After
a day at school
Geppetto
places a china bowl
of
tomato soup on the rickety table,
rising
steam covers tears threatening
to
spill, ‘ridiculous old age weakness,’ –
the
clock’s cuckoo calls the son home.
Beside
the steaming bowl, a P
painted
in bright red, his fingertips
touch
the letter, he positions
a
warm roll, plenty of melting butter,
just
as his son likes it.
His
hears the clicking of feet,
resists,
as he does most afternoons,
the
eager turn to the window to watch
his
wooden son dance down the street –
a
wooden creek making its way home.
His
heart performs leaps
as he
waits for the hand he carved
during
lonely nights,
with
only the singing crickets
as
companions to his desire,
to
take hold of the handle,
and
turn the knob - the door
opens,
the figure washed
into
shadow by the streetlights’
blanket
of fluorescent light.
‘Good evening papa,’
that
familiar falsetto
filling
the empty room
is
enough to drag an old heart
into
bursting, springtime joy.
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