Zaffar Kunial

And so you've got to imagine this O over the sky of this poem.

O, are you watching closely?

My great-grandfather, Hugh MacDonald, was a magician and a tap dancer.

Magic Mac's father, Neil, was an O'Donnell who magicked his Donegal surname Scottish after floating to Aberdeen, where he married a Julia Finn, and there Hugh would in time run an inn wherein he did his tricks.

It is important to remember Magic Mac's mother was called Julia,

as was her mother, and you can forget for now that her brother was a watchmaker who lived one time in Dublin.

Now the second Julia, the elder Julia, had a granddaughter called Julia Finn MacDonald, whose daughter was called Julia, who was English and was to be my mother.

Here now is a coin Magic Mac pulled not from his coat pocket, but the small English ear of my eventual mother.

Look, it has two heads.

Here is his face.

Here is mine.

Ignore the three round small cups over there and the floating O in window.

or coat or poetry.

Forget the world's shades coming through the window.

Keep your eyes on this one coin.

Are you watching closely?

Are you watching closely?