Poetry at Sangam

Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.

FOR THE BOY IN THE CHOIR WITH TOURETTE’S by Todd Swift

He slaps his face as others take communion,
A joyful disunion lurking in a devil’s abandon
That plays jerky havoc with his composure;
A boy of maybe ten or eleven, corpulent

With brown curls and a wide open stare,
Struck into the choir like a daring nail, who
Takes the music into him and jabs it out
Every third bar by an angelic shout;

I feel comforted he is up there, exposed
For all to ignore or mock. In a sea of doubt
And conceit and sin, his two-faced
Demon that winks about his eyes and mouth

Every so often with a punch to the head
Is all the compulsion I need to recognise
For all the love of Jesus a rich seam of lies
Resides within the idea of heavenly skin

Or a bag of cats roils just beneath us all
And in this sweet off-kilter boy is beautiful:
His stop-go body a rock to save stiller ones,
Says every twitching thing that crawls can sing.

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