Brian Wake
Flaubert’s Tie
Flaubert’s roof, the jackdaw thought,
cornering the air, atilt to land somewhere
between a dislocated slate or two
and ribs of joists stripped bare,
is every bit as much, somehow,
a book as any he would write.
And there, it thought, he is, the man himself,
the veritable genuflector before art,
despairing and already torn apart
in utter desolation, wondering if, no doubt,
whatever he might write, can ever be enough
to pay for its repair.
I balance every word, each sentence I create,
he said, unfolding towels for his evening bath
and turning back the covers on his bed,
against the weight of happiness I never knew.
And through the roof the jackdaw watches
Flaubert polishing his shoes
and, from a cupboard, take a tie
and, brushing dandruff from a suit,
plait several sorts of knots and can’ts and don’ts
around his neck, and put it back again.
I wonder what Monsieur Flaubert would do
if it, and huddled in his tub and hope
and soap and water and despair,
were suddenly, the jackdaw thought, to rain.
Page(s) 66
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