Michael Harlow

Predicament

She sits at the table
she hikes the wick of the lamp
she lights it

shadows fly from the walls
fall into the room

she takes the newspaper
the scissors
she cuts long strips of questions
from the front page the back page

she lays them out on the blue
wood of the table
one by one she touches them
words her fingers hear

like spiders raised from sleep
they swarm over her hands
her hair, they tattoo the fine
lines of her face

and they close her eyes

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

© Michael Harlow
 

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Last updated 20 March, 2005