Lovesong for Three Children by Alice Oswald

It starts at pitch quiet
when sleep cloths up sound
and the dead tongue keeps
jointing nad disjointing words,

when breathing blows the ear's
doors a little open and
my heart in note form
steals from its instrument O

now it begins to sing
O those three children and
sings it until light
infiltrates this cone of bones

and I can see you,
my voice, hanging in the
belfry emptiness of the throat,
your two ropes swinging slightly.




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