TRR . . . Poem by Valérie Rouzeau

for Mum, for my sisters Nathalie and Julie, my brothers Stéphane, Franck, David and Nicolas, this ‘comedy' . . .
An iliad ago I was a little girl
A finger in every pie
And so my father christened me
‘The trafficker' - or he recalled me rather.

And with that moniker
I stood up tall tall tall as a candle flame
And everything lit up even the pissing toad
Trrapped deep inside my heart.

I trafficked microscopic elephants
And giant genuinely medieval ants
With a griffin's grip
A lion's mane
A fish's tail
Elastic brushes household zoo of wiles.

A trafficker I shipped out crockery
And knives-that-cut
And granny's teeth
Smeared my face red with birdsong geranium
Grasshopper green and sky sky-blue.

Summoned the frog and tortoise lettuce
Snail and stolen
Bright-red court-shoe quite attractive heel
From my mother also thanks to me mixed up
With needles pine-cones
Cough-drops spittle rain.

And dealt in doilies hankies
I'd embroidered got myself lathered up
With a wild boar badger brush
Hooked by the Daddy-mystery I'd climb the curtains
Terrrified up there purrched on the very edge
Pink oilcloth with kitten's head.

And what's more trafficked in soup not ladlelike
That floating noodle shock of angels' hair
With its cubes of gold let its die be cast:
Run fast as I can from the boiling pan
With fire in my pants!

Likewise I trrafficked in the round round eyes
Of bears the rrag of dolls the colander the slotted spoon
The digitalis poison they call foxglove
In England deep as Wellington boots
Where I'd jump two feet at once good mornings drrenched
With water catch the miracle of passing clouds
And changing me the same.

A lonely dealer at the bottom of the garden or my head inside the wardrobe
While my parents rolled their tongues, ‘trr . . . trr . . . trr . . .'
They were the strangest creatures my Papache my Mamanche
I think I liked them
In that time of simple silly primaries
As if we really ever had a yellow sun.

And I came into their hands I grew
And what's more soon went farther and farther than the bottom of the garden
Than the back of the wardrobe bottom of the well
There was the moon too there in my life
Not the one we trod on the other one
The luminous terrifying secret Phoebe moon.

Trr . . . trr . . . trr . . .
I chirped like a cricket to bring myself luck
Or whatever was trruly happy trruly trruly
Sometimes the satellite Selene of the earth would smile at me
And I'd light up swing out high
Like the smallest spider I used to believe
Suspended in emptiness.

Trr . . . trr . . . trr . . .
I scribble I scrunch it up
Trr . . . trr . . . trr . . .
Trr . . . trr . . . trr . . .
I note it down I chirrup my magic sounds
As long as the world astounds.
Trr . . . trr . . . trr . . .