Phil Kirby
'Summertime, 1943'
from 'Stories from Hopper'
She holds the cold stone,
leans gently on the portico -
facing the breeze that pushes through
curtains into an unlit room - as if
searching out the flags of summer;
dressed to feel its warmth: straw hat
and short-sleeved frock thin
against her leading thigh.
She has stepped into slanting light,
released from the darkness of the hail,
from all that’s pressed her
into ways she cannot bear.
This season. This will be the one,
she thinks, and starts to plan
the contents of a leather case
which sits unused beneath her bed.
Her eyes betray no feeling
as she composes in her head
the note she’ll leave against the salt-pot;
imagines how he’ll shout and rage
in empty rooms at all the things
she’s left behind, that still mean her
but only say how much she hated him.
Page(s) 17
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