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I breathe in as you exhale. The sun butters
the window pane. Across the field the starlings
settle in a perfect square fallen fallow. Dry earth
needs rain and storm clouds choke behind
the western horizon. Your clock ticks, tracing
a perfect semi-circle with a quiet hand. No one
will see this but me, I feel small under the weight
of it, unequal to the measure of these days.
Keep my appointments, then tell me again how you feel.
From Chroma No 2 (Spring 2005)
Wild with sleep and sleeplessness
I kept losing tables, cities,
trees, churches, palaces, entire countries
Where was Egypt?
How could I have misplaced Poland?
When there was only one table left in the world,
breakfast tried to cheer everyone up –
I lost autumn,
ageless autumn, mislaid winter,
all summer I searched for spring
I stole some shadows from my one remaining forest,
some rain from El Nino
I’d appreciate your help
in snatching an hour of lost light back from the moon and stars,
but I guess that’s not going happen
in my lifetime
So much time has passed. Snow-
flakes fall round lit street lamps.
They’re falling in Glasgow
in 1948.
They’re falling in Norway
in 2004.
Would it be good for me
not to say “so much time”?
Would it be better if
I could say “I’m alive
in 1948
and I remember snow-
flakes falling round street lamps
when I was very young
in 2004”?
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