The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

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He was born in Paris in a big white house on a little square off Avenue Foch. Of a mother blond and beautiful and a father quiet and rich.

His nannie wheeled him daily in a high blue pram on pebbled paths under the tall trees. And as May branches were pressing out their green tips of new leaves he was taken on this warm sunny day across the river, through portals, a courtyard and under musty military flags. And there in a godmother's arms with salt pressed on his lips and a cold dash of water on the skull, he was christened Balthazar.

Made of sudden love this gurgling baby shook tiny tender limbs in ecstasy. Wheeled to the Bois across summer, fists encased in woolly whiteness, skies passed more blue than cloudy beyond the folds of gauze. Under leaves and green, nannie sat near knitting on her folding chair. She waved away the mosquitos and bees and welcomed butterflies. And each day at four, in the thickest hot stillness, we headed home for tea.

Up the cooling steps to winter, her blue cap sat on a bun of brown hair. In a crib in the sun room off the vestibule I crawled. And reached through wooden bars to tug at plants sitting on their white gleaming pedestals. And touched where a chinaman fished forever in the river, to make him move. And he stayed the same. Like the cuddling kissing rocking arms I knew. Until the sweet nut flavour and milk white beauty of my mother's breasts were taken away. And I made my first frown.