Your Hand on My Heart

Put your hand on your heart and tell me a tale
I'm bound to believe, quote me figures and facts
so strange and unlikely they have to be real,

how frequencies logged from the song of a whale
speeded up, could be turned into Bacharach hits.
Put your hand on my heart and tell me a tale

of the weight of a feather, the flight of a soul,
the hunter whose dream reveals animal tracks
so strange and unlikely they have to be real.

The map in your head may be scribble and scrawl
but you'll always get home. It's guesswork and wits
and my hand on your heart as you spin me a tale.

I'd go a long way for the charm of your spiel,
though my fingers stay crossed as I step clear of cracks
in the strange and improbable world you make real.

Were we lost out at sea, you could row. I'd bale.
The edge of the world might lurk in the mist,
but your hand on your heart unwinding its tale

would still have me wrapped in the yarn of it all.
Is it true? I might ask. And whatever comes next
my hand on your heart would help me to tell,
though unlikely and strange, this has to be real.

(from Amicable Numbers)

© Mike Barlow