Untitled Document

Play With Me

Aoife Mannix

Your bedroom was Russia,
and you built your armies from plastic monsters
and super sonic laser guns,
but it was no use because I was older
and constructed an imaginary force field to surround America
as we conducted our own Cold War,
marrying off the princess our Gran had given me
to one of your gargoyles in some strange ceremony of alliance
that lasted a whole afternoon with the rain
firing missiles against the window,
and you agreeing to the terms of my treaty
because you didn't know any better,
and besides, there was always the danger
I'd declare the game silly,
and go off and read a book instead,
because I could be like that sometimes,
dead boring, and superior, and on the edge of vanishing
into the world of hormones, boys and phone calls that lasted for days.
But for now the empire had yet to crumble so
we mixed Star Wars and spying and orphans and monopoly,
and I was gracious enough to lend you my doll with the head
that could be pulled on a string to make her talk,
and you were thrilled by the strange radio voices,
pronouncing them ghosts of lost space travelers.
Still now we twirl in and out of tune.
Your gift of a jumping jack,
a promise I never kept.
This unfinished jigsaw puzzle.
The death of stretch monster, his green skin bleeding,
other lost fairy tales.

Aoife Mannix is an Irish poet. Her first full collection of poetry 'The
Elephant In The Corner' was published by Tall Lighthouse
( www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk ) in 2005. Her chapbook ‘The Trick of Foreign
Words' was published in 2002. Her work has been published in numerous
anthologies and magazines as well as being broadcast on BBC Radio 3, BBC
Radio 4, London Live, Resonance FM, and the BBC World Service. More of her
work can be found at www.spoiledink.com/aoifemannix .