SHAPE OF ABSENCE  IV

Very often, during the afternoon when everyone has left

the house, mothers let their aprons on the back of a chair

and open the closet of the dead child

as if to uncover their secret patience

as if to open the back door of silence that leads

          to a sorrowful garden.

They unhang small dresses from the hangers

light-blue, rosy, orange colour, made

of the thoughtful hours of twilight. They dust them

and caress them absentmindedly and suddenly

they smile, their girls must have grown tall by now and

they should buy them new dresses. The brush

is left on the floor like a small craft that

travels in a small seashore with its lights turned off.

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LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS

2023 Longlist Announcement

Similarities

Rain is a tough game that only the one who lost

           can win

lovers also vanish among the other passersby and

the stones children throw in the night again

           fall in futility;

nevertheless I was a hero too, since I often stood

           dumbfounded or I stood aside

as if to live once again in one word: everything

seemed suspicious like the silent cypresses and

the clocks must feel cold but who can think of that

like auntie Rosa, the spinster, who aged on the stairway

with her sealed vulva like a Sunday holiday while

            the bells called the Christians;

when finally someone knocked at the door, three

thousand years had already passed, auntie Rosa had

died at three in the morning however the birds were

asleep we never found which coffin factory was open

           during the night;

I stood hesitantly like a crazy man who bought all

           the music

or like those poor women who always hold a laughable

           umbrella

so they wouldn’t hear the direct insult

almost like a poem is written.

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