I wrote this before, too rigid
the repetition thumped with certainty
like a metronomeaaaaas if the heart was
just physiology —
I asked for an explanation, but how
could anyone explainaaawhy
it happened
aaaaaaaaaaaaexactly
the man, for instance, I saw today
standing in front of his house
in shorts & slippers, who
looked at me
like blank death
— what explanation?
or why do I retain the image
from a B-grade movie I watched as a kid,
a Saturday matinee, of an elderly couple
lying on a bedaaain a ship-cabin
holding each other
as the ship sinksaaaaafor what reason?
yes, there’s an explanation
for the brown pool of coffee
in the teaspoon slowly evaporating
aaaaaaaaaabut is there an explanation
aaaaaaaaaafor the last failed attempt
aaaaaaaaaato start a conversation?
or why you nowaacarefully
push the chair back from the table, stand up
& walk towards the open door
where the sun is shining
on the asphalt footpath
where small pieces of broken glass asparkle.
Published in Poetry NZ 45, September 2012.
