Blue Movies

Child in the pram, your dark face laughing up
at your pale mother, the barking dogs that mark
your slow perambulation down the street.
The autumn sun glistens on your skin, the toys
you rattle. Staphylococci are healing around
your throat; slowly you’re being fed and needled
into health; almost now you can hold your head
upright. Your dark eyes flicker from toys to mother,
from toes to trees, this new world opening out.
For a moment at the corner the pram pauses;
your face crumples as a truck rumbles past.

Your mother’s hand reaches towards you;
quickly your small brown fist is swallowed
as your smile replies to hers. Then your grip
tightens as a stranger’s face looms over the pram.
Perhaps it’s just as well you do not understand
what follows. Such a pretty little child. Is it yours?
Your mother stiffens as she nods. The stranger
looks again from parent to cinnamon child.
Oh dear, she says, the father must be devilish black.
The mother smiles as she eases past her.
I’ve no idea, she says. Blue movies begin to flicker
behind the stranger’s eyes as she stutters away.