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Michael Henry

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The space between

Angle-poised
with sharp two-dimensional heads.

Looking grebe-like to me
like a painting by Audubon.
It’s hard to separate
the grebes from the geese.

Are they mergansers,
their racing silver mantles
blending with autumnal colours
like ice in a Singapore sling?

The bulb of an eye lights up
in their auriscope heads,
sees down the throat of the forest.

I’ll remember their wintry-sleek lines
in summer when the drakes have heads
as green as moss.
I’ll remember those birds, racing silver
like the reincarnation of cars.

What more can I say?
That winter’s been our longest trimester?
That the green seasons will palliate?

Here two grebes face up in the lake.
In Ancient Egypt you couldn’t buy
an amphora more beautiful
than the space that’s between them.
It’s broken
as they bobscull away.

Would you like me to husky you
handfast through the ice?
We could pick up the pieces:
the dismantling of trees
and the roes of rotting sawdust
where the foresters been.

Or I could give you
the breast of a snowdrop,
white as the breast of those grebes.

 

Page(s) 11-12

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