Gawn is my son.
In waking life, he is a man: in the dream, he is nine:
here, he exists with a host of others like him.
In a square room, parents perch on sand dunes
which, at less than a moment’s notice, can be
stabilised by marram grass: vanished by sea.
Gawn fixes his gaze on me: it penetrates my guilt
at having given him away. How ironic it is
that he makes eye contact with nobody else.
A man, a woman, approach in turn and kneel down
to engage him: he speaks in a monotone,
continually tugs at his earlobes.
For a long time afterwards, he sulks on top of a cupboard.
“I want to build a bridge,” he eventually mutters.
He descends and crouches by a model railway
to line up all the detached parts.
I sigh: a bridge is no metaphor to him.
But in a dream, it is just that, I remind myself.
Outside, I choose the causeway between opposing seas:
one a light turquoise with artificial waves,
the other more sombre – the colour of Gawn’s eyes.
Copyright © JENNY JOHNSON
First published in Poetry Salzburg Review
GAWN