baba georges invents everything

baba georges invents everything
at the kitchen table where steam
from the mugs become clouds and
the egg are mountains and syrup seas
to the craggy shores of potato cakes
and every tiny thing became a story
of pirates and journeys though pogroms
to this sunlit patch of house where
everyone is everything tattoos blurring

baba georges tilts head like a sunflower
admiring other sunflowers if no other flower
then my face like baba georges face
just so much younger that baba reaches out for
smooths my hair and pats my cheek
and tells the dark funny stories studded with light
of bells of carts of endless fields of wheat
snow barbed wire and deep harbors
to this sunlit patch of house where
everyone is everything tattoos blurring

dissolving chewing fusing
people who had faces like houses
or bodies like villages and towns
some strong some hollowed out
violent burning as rivers flow
the earth holding while the sky
had clouds with all the tracery infinitely high
like lace like angles wryly looking down
and responsible for lucky breaks
baba georges squints and smiles

sighs and sighs and says and says
the arm back under a sweater
smooths my hair and pats my cheek
and tells the dark funny stories studded with light
of bells of carts of endless fields of wheat
and how can you keep seeing everything
the same way over and over again
when everything is a message
of bliss and a challenge at the same time
to choose dark or light

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