According To.

Atkinson, Tiffany

ACCORDING TO

   Once, about the time you start to notice trees
   and he found out his wife was not his wife
   in any sense but name, Elijah took the dog,
   two apples from the sideboard, and went out.

   Not long afterwards, he came upon an old friend
   bent beneath the bonnet of his car, cursing
   every sprocket of combustion engines. What
   do you suppose the point is? asked Elijah.

   And the friend replied, I have to be there.
   Throw your spanners down and come with me,
   Elijah said. And so the friend did. And his name
   was Tomos, after whom he never thought to ask.

   And Elijah was amazed. Next there was a daughter
   which, close up, they didn't know. But Tomos said
   she looked a lot like his girl would've had she lived.
   He split one apple threeways, and the girl laughed.

   And her laugh was as a pocketful of loose change,
   as the moment when you down your pint and dance.
   Her name was Manon. She was heading to the clinic.
   Then she got her mobile phone out. Mam? she said.

   So from there they went north, telling stories. Till
   they came upon a farmer, bitter drunk, for all his fields
   had failed. They listened, picking fruit seeds from their teeth,
   and where those fell sprang cider-presses, booming.

   Soon a crowd came out to see what had been happening.
   I killed a man, said one man, looking thin. Shit happens,
   said Elijah. Sell your house, give all the money to his folks
   and walk with us. The man did. He gave nobody his name.

   Meanwhile the crowds grew till there wasn't room
   to slide a slice of toast between them. Tomos asked,
   what's this about then? And Elijah said, just as you
   left your hurtful car to walk with me, so this lot feel.

   Look at the rhododendrons! They don't give a toss
   about the stock exchange, the ozone layer. They do
   their own thing. Throw your keys into that hedge,
   ignore the cameras. Be your own true kicking self.

   So Tomos did. He was a simple man, and able
   to draw truth like tears from anyone. Elijah said,
   you know the way that pressure-regulating valves
   secure the rear-brake lines for heavy braking?

   Tomos nodded. Well, Elijah said, you see, that's you.
   At this the grief beat out like crows, and Tomos felt
   a hatching, in the space, of light. Elijah felt it too. And
   where they left a third, unheard-of apple, grew a hamlet,

   grew a village, grew a town, where people started over
   hopefuller than all the Born Again Virgins of America.

   These are the words of Manon, set down with the baby
   on her knee. Elijah Tomos, he'll be. All this happened.