Tom

Amar Shah · Tom

She pulled back the curtain.
It blew over her face.
"I know you're there!
You think I don't know?"

and answered back a voice
from bushes just beyond the fence,
encroaching nearer to the wood:

Isn't it more important
that you know
that you
are there?

She swept a curl over her ear,
wriggling loose
from a sloppy bun,
the worn beige silk
neglecting to cover
the curve of her breast.

"It's ok, it's ok.
Tom,
I've known a long time.
I can
actually
see you,"

and carried back the voice,
resolute,
authoritative,
young, confident,
inflected by French, Dutch, German.
It echoed cross the plain of sand
expanding wide on every sight:

And what does it mean, to
allow others to see you?

"Tom, you can knock it off!"
she huffed,
teeth baring bright,
salutations to
the fullest full-moons,
the river-cancer moons.

"Come to me, Tom,
I want you, I love you!
Let's not play games anymore,"

and came again the voice,
the Father's cold and laughing voice,
high, clear, studied—
intellectual
—and therefore spake the voice,
the cosmic, demi-urgent voice,
loosed from black holes yet uncharted
beyond the reach of space...time:

Interesting.
Very interesting
that you would say that,
when you
don't know me at all.