I always meant to tell you I was sorry, <br />So sorry I was that you must’ve known <br />your godmother and I were totally <br />godless. I remember the time we brought you <br />an incredible yellow dress and you laughed <br />for you looked like a bright banana with <br />brown shoes. A beautiful banana, we thought, <br />intently with pleasure, surprised at our <br />shopping prowess. We two burglars who stole <br />among the petty shadows, your tad youth <br />(as grown-up tales tattered the visage) . <br />We know you remember the gold bracelet, <br />vaguely glistening with two intertwined hearts. <br />The passage of your name about your throat. <br />As seekers, we never wanted you to forget <br />your Identity—for we hung these ornaments <br />in hopes you’d be happy, for we never <br />had a daughter, only sons, able and strong <br />with laughter, while infectious, now gone. <br />A sad love to raise boys, treat them as lions <br />as you were our little lamb, now alone <br />on this lone desert of misplaced landscape. <br />I forgive you for loving your godmother more <br />even if she tried to run me over <br />when she drove so long to find the near truth <br />by a sullen tree with an arched limb, as if… <br />Temptation had bent down its wretched arm <br />as I felt his weathered skin. But I love him. <br />Yes, more than your godmother, myself, with his disease.<br /><br />MARINA GIPPS<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-mask-17/
