SILLY TOGETHER Poem by Tonnus Oosterhoff

What do you want me to write about
Ask it today


Stand hunched + crouch by a mouse, dead.
gnawed in the neck by four beetles,
orange compass points, very, very softly whirring.
a constantly repeated not naming


'Helicopter.' 'Yes, helicopter.'
Not at all; the reverse. 'Hands off, dirty old man.'
Now my boy lies beside me in the heather
And points out what he sees in the clouds


And so on with St. Andrew's crosses, beehives, crossing cauliflowering
clouds
with a Union bike, child at the front.
The crossing is sensitive. 'Bumpety-bump.'
'Yes, isn't it? Bumpety-bump. Soft tyres.'


A bee whizzes past in the wind.
A blackcap talks loud in the bushes,
senseless on the wind branch.


like glimmerings fade
'Bumpety-bump, isn't it, Daddy?' 'What?'
'Helicopter.' 'Yes.'


Silly together is being silly together
silly together.


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