Christine McNeill
Hokusai's fisherman
It was Hokusai’s drawing
of a fisherman on a rock—
beneath him coils of waves,
a blaze of emptiness
that brought back the night
they’d had spaghetti
and him saying
that when the Canadian soil was very cold
and warm air
came into the country,
the rain froze
as it hit the ground.
A wart below her neck
and for weeks she’d wondered
benign or malignant
until one day
it had come away
easy as a sated insect.
Dabbing at the blood
she’d asked herself
where the battle was fought:
the wart
light as fluff on her fingernail—
easy to imagine
such cold
that when a glass of water
is thrown out a window
it freezes before it hits the ground.
of a fisherman on a rock—
beneath him coils of waves,
a blaze of emptiness
that brought back the night
they’d had spaghetti
and him saying
that when the Canadian soil was very cold
and warm air
came into the country,
the rain froze
as it hit the ground.
A wart below her neck
and for weeks she’d wondered
benign or malignant
until one day
it had come away
easy as a sated insect.
Dabbing at the blood
she’d asked herself
where the battle was fought:
the wart
light as fluff on her fingernail—
easy to imagine
such cold
that when a glass of water
is thrown out a window
it freezes before it hits the ground.
Christine McNeill has published a collection, Kissing the Night (Bloodaxe 1993), and a translation of Rilke’s poem-cycle, The Life of the Virgin Mary (Dedalus Press 2003).
Page(s) 61
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