Tryst
 Poetry By Rae Pater
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Conversations With My Father

The child sat on the door step
next to the man.
Sun frazzled the sky.

Little fingers fought
to control their direction,
tying a shoelace.

"Dad."
"Mmm."
"What time is it?"

the man leaned back
squinted into the sun
"Oh … a hair past a freckle."
A small cloud muddled the light.

"Dad."
"Mmm."
"How old am I?"
"Oh … as old as your tongue
and a little bit older than your teeth."

The man leaned down with patient fingers,
tied the lace,
pressed his face
to little face.
Eyeball to eyeball
in a narrow space,
fluttered an eyelash
against her cheek

"I’m giving you a close look."
Brown eyes twinkle.

Sunlight plays
On childhood’s memories,

long blue days,
my father’s yarns.

 

© Rae Pater 2002

More Poetry:
 Hunger & Humiliation
Watching Weight
Shampoo
Jessica Had A Baby

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Bio: Rae Pater is a New Zealand poet, and has been writing poetry seriously for about a year now. She was born in New Zealand, and has lived there all her life. She has three children and a dog called Bob. She writes: "I have always been an avid reader especially in the fantasy/fairytale genre and I find this influences my poetry a lot. Writing poetry, to me, is like tapping directly into my subconscious and writing the contents down. Reading someone else's poetry, I think, is as close as you can get to being inside someone else's head." Rae has been published in a two print anthologies, and The Press. (her local newspaper). Her online credits include WORDSPACE, MiPo, and New Zealand Poets Online.