Written by
Margaret Atwood |
In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.
The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.
Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,
their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,
every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,
the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.
I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.
I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything
in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,
including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,
bare child's feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts
and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.
|
Written by
Chris Jones |
We sat in the belly of the aeroplane
and held out for sirens to swerve across the grass;
men with cutting gear and masks. No-one came.
On a back seat, Mr. Phillips bandied jokes to pass
the time; the dark air cooling our arms
and scents like burrs stitched in hair, clothes.
In the distance we swore we heard alarms
before HQ radioed the fire-drill’s close,
and we emerged still feigning breaks and scrapes
led by teacher bandaged and bad at the hip,
attentive to this miraculous escape.
Our shadows thin creatures from the Mother Ship.
*
That view of Bob Phillips’ dance down the steps
comes back when I think of him alone
on the fairway, trailing scarves of breath
as he lugs clubs beyond the lake-side ninth for home,
and feels sharp tingles, then a rip-tide through his arm
that swells to pains across his chest.
To stand there, cry out above the calm,
and wait for hands, a touch – but Bob is destined
to collapse in thick grass, lie wide for the day
in a hide and seek open to everyone.
No-one for miles comes close to play.
His big face surprised the world is taking so long.
|
Written by
Carl Sandburg |
THE WIND stops, the wind begins.
The wind says stop, begin.
A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor.
The shovel changes, the floor changes.
The sandpipers, maybe they know.
Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell.
Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses.
The sandpipers cheep “Here” and get away.
Five of them fly and keep together flying.
Night hair of some sea woman
Curls on the sand when the sea leaves
The salt tide without a good-by.
Boxes on the beach are empty.
Shake ’em and the nails loosen.
They have been somewhere.
|