2011
ELIZABETH GRAEME
AWARD IN POETRY
Mariah
Rachel Burke
Friends Select School
Noah in Room 214C
I.
Small crabs cling to the last sandbar in this sea
too difficult for you to comprehend where
the wave ends, where the wake begins
where the cracks in the sand leave
sharp shells, prodding at you.
Piercing, lying shells.
Lying through their spliced tongues, these snakes.
Frankie, may no one lie to you.
May no one cut your angel toes with seashells
unsmoothed by the ripple and tide
of the sea
you wade in by the red house with the white fence.
Frankie, you are Noah.
Call to your animals
beckon them with your divine grip,
this little secret no one knows.
Call to your cattle, sheep, goats
To your swine and ravens.
I assure you they will follow
in the wake of a garden of petals
of the jubilant titters you leave behind.
II.
Frankie is born in the winter,
light so rare
it is an immaculate conception
from the darkness.
The sun is broken into tiny spits of glass that scatter across
the hospital floor.
He is lifted, touched, hugged, embraced
He is examined.
And now they think they know you.
Theyve got you down to a science
with you squealing beneath, wanting to be understood.
Frankie fails to hear his elephants trumpeting,
his birds chirping
the gray cords, sing-song notes
a rich harmony that
shake the air into smooth little ripples
fall slowly to the ground.
Frankie does not know,
cannot feel the vibrations which hug him close.
Ask him to believe.
The raven sticks his beak far into his warm, moist ear.
Frankie, lead me.
But little Frankie does not respond.
Somehow understands, but
no response.
Does not twitch when his monitor clicks twice, thrice.
The verdict is made,
carved through the stone of a moment, unchangeable.
The sun lies in little bits and pieces
between the frosted panes of mid January.
The re-birth of a year.
III.
Frankie, may no one call you simple.
No one who reports that:
you fail to respond to auditory cues.
No, no, no, none.
But Frankie, you are yes.
Your eyes are half-moon crescents
that giggle as they wane.
IV.
When you raise your hands now
Everyone gravitates to you, though you have no beard, no staff
but I can feel them moving.
Did you lick the ground,
inhale the scattered light which
spills from your mouth
and seeps from your eyes?
Smooth ripples from oceans of truth glide
between the cracks of your baby teeth.
When you lift your hands,
cry out with this happiness,
I only wish you could spare me a slice
You have convinced me.
Noah,
may no one doubt you.