Unfinished Novel Poem by Michael Hartnett

Ah yes - they justify it all, the brats,
hungry or asleep and gorged with milk.
Each drop's (yes, the milk they drink is yours)
another line unwritten, another page
crumpled like a pufiball on the floor.
Your limpid dialogue is reduced
to the basic syllables of the cave
and the quick infant minds grow huge, while you
relearn vocabularies from the pram.
The typewriter is now a battered toy,
its ribbon has fingerprinted all the walls
(cenotaphs for dead letters all its keys).
You tap the heads assailing your broad lap
and polarise regret and love them while
the cunning offspring of your milk and blood
root up the truffles of your mind.