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Crossfire               Under a Stone

         Red Geranium on an Isolation Ward           Further Adventures of The Little Box

 

Crossfire

 

It hasn’t moved for months.

It knows its place – on top of the dresser

facing the door.

 

Arum Lily

        the Afrikaans have a name for you:

 

Varkblom

Pig’s Ear

 

no wonder you poke out

your yellow tongue.

 

Calla Lily

one day you will be caught

        in our crossfire.

 

Someone will wrench you

from your terracotta pot

and hurl you to the floor.

 

Names will fly.

Fists flail.

 

My Little White Hood

 

I will remember you

mute and beautiful –

        bite my tongue.

 

Maggie Sawkins

in collections: The Zig Zag Woman, 2007,

Two Ravens Press, ISBN 978-1-9061200-8-5

and Charcot's Pet, Flarestack, 2002,

ISBN No. 1 900397 52

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Under a Stone

 

Leaf,

you no longer know

what it means

 

to be a leaf under a stone.

 

You’ve got too used

to the cold slab weight of it.

 

Absence of light

has turned you

into a wafer of veins

 

a leafshadow.

 

One skipping day

a child will come

and kick away the stone.

 

For a moment

you will lie there,

afraid of your own lightness

 

afraid of what you’ve become,

 

dazed

by the suddenness

of a white winter sun.

 

Maggie Sawkins

first published in The Interpreter's House;

in collection: The Zig Zag Woman, 2007,

Two Ravens Press, ISBN 978-1-9061200-8-5

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Red Geranium on an Isolation Ward

 

She knew how to die –

the earth around her stem

was so dry it refused

the water we poured there

 

and though, like a ritual,

we snapped off

each bruised cluster

before it had time

                to fall,

        there was no renewal –

even the sun pushing

        its fist through the window

                could not coax her.

 

Maggie Sawkins

first published in Acumen,  2005;

in collection: The Zig Zag Woman, 2007,

Two Ravens Press, ISBN 978-1-9061200-8-5

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Further Adventures of The Little Box
(In memory of "The Little Box" by Vasko Popa)

 

Dear Mr Popa

 

Since you are dead

I am writing with news of The Little Box.

 

When we first met (as a preface

to a book on how to cobble up a poem)

it was like looking into the face of a smile.

 

In July The Little Box and I attended

an event at The Botanical Gardens.

Though we were placed between lines

from Paradise Lost and The Song of Quoodle,

and the wind made the microphone groan

and the paper shake, you’ll be pleased to hear

we held our own.

 

After, as we sat back on the grass,

and Naming of Parts boomed

through the speakers,

people came up to ask about The Little Box.

I explained I didn’t know what it meant

only that it made me smile.

 

Then yesterday, this:

 

After a brainstorm brought nil response

from my session with the mentally ill,

I took out The Little Box and sifted

its emptiness into the silence.

 

When I looked up your words were resting

like butterflies along their shoulders,

and on each face was a smile.

 

Sleep tight, Mr Popa,

I’m taking good care of The Little Box.

 

Maggie Sawkins

first published in Magma, No. 30;

in collection: The Zig Zag Woman, 2007,

Two Ravens Press, ISBN 978-1-9061200-8-5

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