The Shore Magazine -"INFANTILE" by Robert Zbikowski

"INFANTILE"
by Robert Zbikowski

Clumsy child, drop things often. Do not perfect
your fine motor skills. Retrieve slippery
skittish toys without bending of knees;

splay your legs, pivot at the hips, arms straight out
as seems most direct. Forget balance.
Lean into gravity, topple headfirst and cry yourself

to apoplexy. It will pass. Cry often, cry loud,
over misplaced items, a split lip, skinned knee,
but not until you notice blood or the adults

fuss about you like the end of the world.
Avoid complex emotions. Center the universe
around yourself, your wants, your peevish fancy.

Know in your heart that chocolate
is best absorbed through the skin of the face.
Allow for the difficulty of drinking from juice glasses,

stain your shirts purple, orange and pink.
Wear your food like war paint, use forks and spoons
like the awkward implements they are.

Refuse to acquiesce to stillness. When forced
into chairs tumble out of them, from leaning,
stretching, for simply forgetting how to sit.

Remain of featherweight, easy to be picked up
and spun dizzy, toes and feet tugged at by centrifugal glee.
Have nothing to do with noiselessness

save sleep, and sleep deep and long in surprising
positions, potato-sack-like in your exhaustion.
Drool profusely. Let yourself be carried.

Let every embrace
be absolute safety.

---

Robert Alexander Zbikowski lives, works, writes and plays in Montreal.

---

PREVIOUS WORK

"CRÉMATOIRE" by Robert Zbikowski