public intimacies (3 neighbourhood)

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 Public intimacy 3

in the neighbourhood
Out for a walk and
a boy of two or three—he’s
                  riding high
on his father’s shoulders—
and he waves brightly,
                  says hi!
so I wave and, rightly,
                  say hi!
right back.
His father’s fatherly smile says:
he thinks it’s so precious,
and, of course, it is—
soon his boy will learn
to be quiet, the way he is,
whenever a stranger passes by.