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Mainland
What they say
in the South
is cut short
or it’s a waste of breath.
Silence has a word
for most things;
if not, a grunted
syllable will do.
If anything talks
it’s their fishing-rods
their twenty-twos
their blistered feet.
You see them sometimes
on the screen
perplexed by cheesewrappers
and progress.
Their smile
is a slow and reluctant
folding: in case it upsets
the expression.
For their faces
are like mountainsides
prone to erosion
if provoked.
Their physiognomy
and that of the South
agree: that nothing
should be made easy.
[ES,PP, 1998]
© The Estate of Bill Sewell 2004
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