Читать книгу Listener - Lemn Sissay - Страница 17

It isn’t what’s said, it’s what’s not said

What says it all.

The day you brought it home

I’ll never forget.

It was only seven foot tall then.

An elephant! I said.

Put it in the back yard.

Fine, you said, Fine!

And disgruntled

Tied it to the washing line.

As you slept I’d pull back the curtains

Stand by the window and watch it.

A dark shadow. An iceberg. A hump filled the back yard,

Rising and falling with each deep gentle snore.

Breakfasts were never the same again.

The elephant took up all the space

And had no table manners whatsoever,

Although it was useful for the washing-up.

Whenever I broached the subject

You’d rant and rave and fume,

Say I was going crazy, There is no elephant in the room.

But the saddest thing is not the crockery it smashed

Nor the walls it demolished, of our past.

It wasn’t its footsteps stamped all over our home,

The cracked floorboards or its wont to roam.

It was the lie established after I said, It’s there.

For years you looked at me and said, Where, dear, where?