Matthew Barton
Painting by Pieter de Hooch
This is a light before
silver screens, steelworks, before
clingfilmed sandwiches. 300-year-old
summer’s morning light as full
of itself as a fresh loaf prints
the floor’s stone tiles
with its pat
of butter, makes
the open door say ah.
Within, the shady room, the hands
of the woman make light work
as the child bends its head back in
to the dark source of her lap.
If I could just step through
that door, I’d see
a world without the shadow
of an idea about
service stations, laptops, not
to mention how city dawns lay bare
separate hearts like lifted wrecks. But what
havoc I would wreak – the child
starting up in terror, the woman’s gaze
slowly taking in my mind’s
enormity and smallness; light
crumbling in her face to dust.
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