A Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms
A Poetry Sporadical of Repeating Forms
Back and forth and back and forth and out the other side
my needle hauls through canvas and comes out the other side.
Red tiles surround the sultan’s fountain. They only show
a glorious history. Slaves were used to grout the other side.
There’s always another way to confirm a thought
or are you only happy when you flout the other side?
Before you etch your copper plate, reverse the scene.
Then use your sharpest tools to cut out the other side.
I hear you, Philomela, catch up my musings with your beak—
you drag them through the curtained night and out the other side.
Mary Cresswell is from Los Angeles and lives on the Kapiti coast north of Wellington, New Zealand. Her second book, Nearest & Dearest, was published in 2009 by Steele Roberts Ltd, Wellington. She is interviewed about it here.