Childhood's End

Adam strapped in the
patient's chair,

a sugar-coated phial loaded
between his teeth.

Dr Wu drilling key-holes
into soft crowns of skull,

injects fizzy sherbert
into Adam's numb brain.

Now he is a child again,
re-living the happy day of his life.

Adam runs to a nearby park,
yanks off his shoes and socks,

throws his briefcase into
the glittering lake.

The air is sweet in this
long-forgotten world and everything

in it eager for his fun. His scatterings
and japes draw gasps from the old

(the lumbering, bumbling old whose painful
digressions so offend his childish eye).

He sleeps in a haze of contentment,
tenderised by moonlit dreams.

For what can be more pleasing
than childhood ? With its secret promise

of the everlasting, its fearlessness,
its scents, its anticipation of the immortal ?

Only when he wakes in the frosted
dead of night does he shiver,

the sky pearl-black,
orchestrated by an ugly refrain.

The park is now empty
and Adam's feet are cold.

Loneliness is our fear and he is
bewitched before his time.

First light has broken
on childhood's end.

Hunt for your socks and briefcase, Adam -
search out the patient's chair,

a sugar-coated phial
loaded between your teeth.