Michael Harlow

The final arrangement

The guards arrive in carts
drawn by blue horses

they climb down

they squat under the brushwork of trees
in the green weather of the Old City

they pry open the black boxes
they take out the prisoners
they take out needles, thread
they take out the wives and children
of the prisoners
they place them side by side
 
they prop them entirely in the sunlight
and one by one they stitch them together

From Today is the Piano’s Birthday   (Auckland/Oxford UP, 1981)

© Michael Harlow
 

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Last updated 20 March, 2005