DID
-
Josephine Dickinson (U.K.)
you lean forward,
half-expecting a visitor?
Or poise like an archer
aligning an arrow with its target
— three more in your quiver to go —
at the moment
your visitor
And did you breathe as if
for lack
of what to say when you saw
the card on the mat
the last card
And did you gasp when your
visitor arrived
and show him the snail shells
scattered on the garden path
where you'd sat in the sun
the day before
Did you slowly drift to sleep,
your cap beside you,
your stick propped on the two-seater,
the tv listings creased open on your left
Or were you startled by lights
from Matteo di Giovanni’s Assumption
for the first time since it was copied in the
National Gallery by student Dorothy Morgan
and slowly browned over the years
What was the moment like —
was it like slipping out the back door
at night, lifting and dropping the latch
as silently as you could manage
As the Christmas cards in the
unopened package turned into a
flock of birds and departed
in all directions?
****