That was fun, wasn’t it? I ask him.
I always talk to my children in italics.
But he’s preoccupied, doesn’t reply.
‘Sometimes,’ he says, eventually, ‘I get an evil urge.’

What do you mean?
‘I mean I get an urge to do something evil.’
Like what?
‘I get an evil urge,’ he says,
‘to throw my beloved toy into the river.’
He looks sadly at the yellow plastic kitten in his hand.

Everyone gets thoughts like that, I tell him.

I, for instance, cannot cross a bridge
without the passing impulse to jettison
my wallet, phone and keys over the side,
Thanatos, death drive, call of the void:
oh, in my mind how many cruise ships have I hurled myself off?
Another mojito, darling? Why yes. Sploosh.

Needless to say there is plenty I’d never tell a soul.

Do you know what St Basil the Great
said about that? I ask him. ‘No,’ he says.

He said, “The day you can tie a knot
between two of your eyelashes
is the day you can control your thoughts.”
I think he also said something about it being
—–a sin to touch dogs.
That might have been someone else.
The point is, sometimes someone says something brilliant
but that doesn’t mean they don’t also
say some really stupid things.

By this point my six year old
has thrown his plastic kitten into the canal
and I have started taking off my shoes.

*
From Magma 85, Poems for schools



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