Father studied theology through the mail <br />And this was exam time. <br />Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book <br />Full of pictures. Night fell. <br />My hands grew cold touching the faces <br />Of dead kings and queens. <br /> <br />There was a black raincoat <br /> in the upstairs bedroom <br />Swaying from the ceiling, <br />But what was it doing there? <br />Mother's long needles made quick crosses. <br />They were black <br />Like the inside of my head just then. <br /> <br />The pages I turned sounded like wings. <br />"The soul is a bird," he once said. <br />In my book full of pictures <br />A battle raged: lances and swords <br />Made a kind of wintry forest <br />With my heart spiked and bleeding in its branches.<br /><br />Charles Simic<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-book-full-of-pictures/
