Jamie McKendrick
Shaky premises
Now timber beetles make our house their home
bowling long galleries down the solid oak
purlins so hardwood breaks under the thumb
like a wrecked mast or an ancient sponge cake,
the whole place may hang on the shakiest premise
- hair of the hog or the horse, a coat of paint or skim -
like that alpaca jacket, years on the coat hook,
which herds of clothes moths have more or less
darned with thin air. Outside’s the same:
I had such high hopes for the hollyhock
which now has one leaf left. The clematis
snails have whittled down to a dry faun stem ...
so having been eaten out of house and home
truly our place of habitation has become
a waste of dragons - what I thought was built on rock
was draped not built, and draped on the abyss.
Jamie McKendrick's Sky Nails was published by
Faber in 2000. A new book of poems, Ink Stone,
is due early next year.
Page(s) 51
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