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published in collection
Drowning up the Blue End
bluechrome, 2004, ISBN 1
904781 54 3
Ear-Piercing
It might
have been a Vermeer—the light
from the street
falling through glass to catch
the raised hand,
the stream of milk, the note
fingered on the
virginal. A perfect
composition:
tiled floor, a still-life
of trinkets, a
trio of figures
freeze-framed in
a palette of golds, blues,
reds—each one
held back, each one holding her breath.
Watch the
shop-girl smile,
only a prick
then it’s
done;
the mother, linen-white,
cupping a swift
hand for the trickle
of blood; the
daughter, brush-blurred, still wet
behind the ears,
caught between coquetry
and innocence,
waiting for the needle’s bite.
Siriol
Troup
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