But it is the end of the world to River, who’s standing there
thrown by its incomprehensibilities as I play him R.E.M.,
which is otherwise what he needs, total sleep and churning dreams,
not the drums, distortion and irony, he does not feel fine,
the Furies cascading from his tongue, and nor do I,
it’s the end of the world but he doesn’t know its confounding divisions
make me wanna bawl too, not least at the edge of this room where
I’m founding, refusing to give in, until I hand him a ball,
bright orange to which his eyes re-constellate wetly, and miraculously
he chucks it back, we roll it around and like a quoll he’s after it,
I hurl it against the chuckling bricks, then on to the ground
it rebounds to the ceiling, ricochets off the walls,
all about his boxy room like a lost comet I’m picking him up
throwing him in the air and he bounces off the ceiling
and walls of my heart, his inconsolability reversed
like a storm retracting into cloud we’re a waterhole of frogs,
a crackle of cockatoos, he’s hooting like a kaka, laughing like a goose,
splitting the sides of time and space as a dodo resurrected 
he’s a whole new feeling world, limbs whorling,
hurtling back in from love’s outfield.