She holds her child in her hands,
barely more than a basket of bones light as twigs.
I see the anguish in her face, and try to imagine
the weight of my starving child on my hands
but cannot; I cannot bear to put my child’s face
on that emaciated body.
I will not bear her suffering, not even in imagination;
maybe that is why such horrors persist.
Each discovery opens the door
To a room more empty.
Converging to a point,
and it bugle-shaped to infinity.
Stars make space in my head.
Standing flying,
The universe without within;
Minute, infinite
I.
Full sails once,
bulging with summer sunlight;
we would have gathered them in, eyes.
Geometries of whitened stone:
disused warehouses;
midday has lain down,
stretched out, listless beneath the walls.
Water that is lapping against the quay-side,
speak up;
what is the history of this place?
Part river:
play of current on bronzed pebble-beds,
sweet.
Part stone:
tapping waters in the sound boxes beneath boulders,
their back-beat.
Part waterweed:
the choir’s descants ascend to high C,
the shape of it.
Sopping fields
green with water,
lush drumlins
sluicing November rain
down their soused sumps,
spewing stone-coloured cloudscapes
onto the road,
coughing up sozzled fences
from beer-brown drains
to hobble under their load of time
tunelessly
into winter’s torpor.
Having arrived at my conclusion,
I embark upon a contemplation
of the issues.
Since there is nothing to consider,
I mull over them
and reach the decision
that my ruminations are futile,
that I have already fixed
on a resolution
and that considerable forethought
will be necessary
for the solution I require.
