A Bolt of Black Cloth
I imagined a colour the density of funeral bunting,
A bolt of black cloth,
A sudden black waterfall quickly dropping six stories,
Unrolled from a balcony,
The beginning of a voyage,
Negotiating darkness.
My father shopped at Dales for paper bags full of groceries,
I waited in the car listening to the radio,
I tried to describe a song called Eve of Destruction,
He looked at me in the rear-view mirror,
Columns of black smoke rose above the Pacific Ocean,
Like poisonous vines,
Morse code blinking through the darkness,
At night he came home as late as possible,
Then looking again into the rear-view mirror,
He repeated the name of the song,
‘Eve of Destruction.’
I pictured a wooden bowl in my chest,
Smoothed and worn by water,
& Climbing the stairs into this language,
Gazed, longingly, into a rear-view mirror.
poemimage 