Love Poem: The Child Is Heaven
Earle Brown Avatar
Written by: Earle Brown

The Child Is Heaven

You came, masquerade in woman. You were a spirit
adjacent to God and the angel 
spilled from projection below my waistline.
But beyond these four walls call home
You walked the boorish sidewalks. I found you
in comfortable wardrobe. 
Your hieroglyphics are seen 
in grottos filled with bat droppings.
Who are you behind the woman I found 
in Freeport August wind? Your hair, alive
like curtains in the draft, motioned to me. 
For three slow years
we walked the sea front, fronting;
we kissed. Your tongue in my mouth,
in public places (before the huge sea cows) 
painting cartouche in a new cave. 
I turn from mother and father, like I did Jesus.
They could read you like the big black Bible.
I missed you … on wintry days. The furnace
was warmhearted and we rubbed our hands
together. Hands will do anything 
to rouse a feeling,
like masturbation 
and tickling a dirty armpit for a giggle. 
We were living a sex life, outside of other senses. 
I never cover my mouth; you were everywhere – 
the men’s room, the men’s night outs, rum bars, 
and in the cemetery; on that flat grave.
Now when I see them … 
my words cut my tongue off 
and my lips are stitched together with shame.
My heart was damaged, the intercourse gone,
but the home is unbroken. The child is heaven.