GORDON HODGEON

SONG FOR MARIO
In the film, Il Postino

More than an island 
you were learning to sail 
on those choppy words 
a little boat to 
maybe, one day, Chile.

And into your being, 
lover, communist, martyr, poet. 
You found your silence, you sang it 
under boots, under truncheons. 
The redness inside you, outside you.

The damage of poems 
that change the impossible. 
Is the whole world a metaphor? 
you asked that poet. 
A circle on a blank page.

There it goes, small white ball,
riots through all the defence.
Your woman's mouth secretes it,
your son's hand, you never held, holds it.
Little white ball of earth
shoots the circumference.

And there you go, 
almost silent fish, 
escaping the sad nets 
with the tide's blood. 
Maybe, one day, Chile.