What the Child Cannot Learn From Books

By Vincent R. Pozon

When you wound a leather sofa
with the forbidden razor blade,
you see no cut but a blooming,
cotton pulp breaches skin, first peeps
and bursts out almost in delight.

When you try to punch through a pane
in a capiz window, you will
be awed by how something so flimsy
will not yield so easily, learning
that it’s not one sheet but layers.

A toy, once taken apart, cannot
be reassembled, and so joins
others hidden under the bed.
Soon you will learn that disarray
is the natural state of things.

Books cannot teach you that the pulp
tucked tight in furniture, once freed,
will not be persuaded to return,
patched perhaps, but the gape will
refuse to turn into just a gash.

When you crack the capiz and cause harm,
things cannot return to pristine,
and when you hide what you take apart
under the bed, they rattle at night,
waking you before the morning.