Poem, Peter and Wendy, "Wendy, to Jane"
Wendy, to Jane
Peter’s the mistake we make
when we’re too young to know any better.
My mother went with him,
came home, put away childish things,
and is Mrs. Darling now, at all the right parties,
in all the right clubs, a closet full of evening gowns,
a smart haircut and the best shoes.
Left us at home with the dog.
That’s who she is.
I never thought she had been,
but she admitted it to me, years ago,
one winter night after a half-bottle of sherry.
It was a mistake, she said, it was disgusting, on the island.
So unsanitary. All those little boys
and none of them with a handkerchief.
We have never discussed it since, even obliquely.
Her mother, my grandmother, went, and got with child -
his, I assume.
Peter left her in a heap of dead leaves in Regent’s Park,
her son on her hip, the fairy dust gone,
her hand reaching after him, toward the stars.
That’s how she tells it, told it to me when I visited,
when I was a little girl,
her crepey hand stretched up at the ceiling
to catch a boy who never came back.
She left my window open at night
and gave me heaps and piles of old books to read,
which she said would be good preparation for telling stories
to the Lost Boys.
She married my grandfather, when the baby was two,
and they told everyone that she had been an actress,
under a false name,
but was now retired from the stage.
The baby? Your great-uncle Albert.
Died last year in the hospital.
Completely mad. Always was. They sent him to fight
when he was just out of school,
and he didn’t quite come back, did he?
A shame. I never really knew him.
Your grandmother muttered something
about burying him at a crossroads
but she wasn’t the one making the arrangements.
This is who we are,
this is how it has always been. This is the never-land,
which is where we come from and where we go.
Peter’s the spot of blood on your nightgown,
the crocodile ticking in the dark,
your little brother clinging to your hand,
the smell of urine on tattered pajamas,
a hundred howling throats,
the sword and the shipful of pirates.
Peter’s the red hand falling in the water
and the hard high laugh that follows it down.
The flying, that was what I liked best,
the sill dropping away from my feet,
my hands against the stars,
high and far off.
Of course you’ll go. Of course I went.
for Cofax, whose version had better be a lot less fucked up than this
This entry was originally posted at http://circadienne.dreamwidth.org/3316.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Peter’s the mistake we make
when we’re too young to know any better.
My mother went with him,
came home, put away childish things,
and is Mrs. Darling now, at all the right parties,
in all the right clubs, a closet full of evening gowns,
a smart haircut and the best shoes.
Left us at home with the dog.
That’s who she is.
I never thought she had been,
but she admitted it to me, years ago,
one winter night after a half-bottle of sherry.
It was a mistake, she said, it was disgusting, on the island.
So unsanitary. All those little boys
and none of them with a handkerchief.
We have never discussed it since, even obliquely.
Her mother, my grandmother, went, and got with child -
his, I assume.
Peter left her in a heap of dead leaves in Regent’s Park,
her son on her hip, the fairy dust gone,
her hand reaching after him, toward the stars.
That’s how she tells it, told it to me when I visited,
when I was a little girl,
her crepey hand stretched up at the ceiling
to catch a boy who never came back.
She left my window open at night
and gave me heaps and piles of old books to read,
which she said would be good preparation for telling stories
to the Lost Boys.
She married my grandfather, when the baby was two,
and they told everyone that she had been an actress,
under a false name,
but was now retired from the stage.
The baby? Your great-uncle Albert.
Died last year in the hospital.
Completely mad. Always was. They sent him to fight
when he was just out of school,
and he didn’t quite come back, did he?
A shame. I never really knew him.
Your grandmother muttered something
about burying him at a crossroads
but she wasn’t the one making the arrangements.
This is who we are,
this is how it has always been. This is the never-land,
which is where we come from and where we go.
Peter’s the spot of blood on your nightgown,
the crocodile ticking in the dark,
your little brother clinging to your hand,
the smell of urine on tattered pajamas,
a hundred howling throats,
the sword and the shipful of pirates.
Peter’s the red hand falling in the water
and the hard high laugh that follows it down.
The flying, that was what I liked best,
the sill dropping away from my feet,
my hands against the stars,
high and far off.
Of course you’ll go. Of course I went.
for Cofax, whose version had better be a lot less fucked up than this
This entry was originally posted at http://circadienne.dreamwidth.org/3316.html. Please comment there using OpenID.