Evanescing
Our ghost, Pot, has been
particularly active, exteriorising the dog.
I was awoken in the night by a clawing sound and, descending the staircase, saw Larkin lying in the centre of the room. Beside her on the floor was the blue towel we use to protect the sofa she sleeps on, pulled out.
When I reached the foot of the stairs, she got up and walked to the intersecting step between the kitchen and snug. I noticed that the light in the snug was on. It seemed rather dim, but I assumed this was due to it being an energy saving bulb. Reaching round the wall with my hand, however, I realised that the light switch was in the off position. Clicking it down made the light glow brighter, and then clicking it up again made the light finally go off completely.
I re-tucked the towel back into the sides of the sofa, and went to bed.
The next morning, my son went down, as he usually does before the rest of us, and I heard him call out: "Where is Larkin?" I ran down and into the kitchen, where I saw the dog through the window of the back door, asking to come in from the garden. The door was locked and bolted.
In exile, deprived of social sustenance, Tsvetaeva lived in notebooks, in debts to log,
As a starving body eats its own heart, and a weak story turns to the pledge of the prologue.
In Prague, she had felt devoured, so came to Paris, receiving a small stipend. Shadows clog
The tiny holes of my bedside clock’s speakers; and I thread through the stinging stipple of a fog.
The clawing sound is mastication of the last thing to take cognizance of my self—the dog,
I must exteriorise the dog, must, from the oast, as a ghost, knocknobbler and pedagogue,
As the one no one sees in the gym, untraceable but for citations in the catalogue
For Salgado's exhibition, irreal, ill, I must; entice her out to the brackish bog
With a beef trachea, or if that is too grisly, a scab of sanitised jerky to jog
Salivation; and will by evanescence enjoy some kind of esoteric dialogue
With the poet living in Paris, 1925.
I was awoken in the night by a clawing sound and, descending the staircase, saw Larkin lying in the centre of the room. Beside her on the floor was the blue towel we use to protect the sofa she sleeps on, pulled out.
When I reached the foot of the stairs, she got up and walked to the intersecting step between the kitchen and snug. I noticed that the light in the snug was on. It seemed rather dim, but I assumed this was due to it being an energy saving bulb. Reaching round the wall with my hand, however, I realised that the light switch was in the off position. Clicking it down made the light glow brighter, and then clicking it up again made the light finally go off completely.
I re-tucked the towel back into the sides of the sofa, and went to bed.
The next morning, my son went down, as he usually does before the rest of us, and I heard him call out: "Where is Larkin?" I ran down and into the kitchen, where I saw the dog through the window of the back door, asking to come in from the garden. The door was locked and bolted.
In exile, deprived of social sustenance, Tsvetaeva lived in notebooks, in debts to log,
As a starving body eats its own heart, and a weak story turns to the pledge of the prologue.
In Prague, she had felt devoured, so came to Paris, receiving a small stipend. Shadows clog
The tiny holes of my bedside clock’s speakers; and I thread through the stinging stipple of a fog.
The clawing sound is mastication of the last thing to take cognizance of my self—the dog,
I must exteriorise the dog, must, from the oast, as a ghost, knocknobbler and pedagogue,
As the one no one sees in the gym, untraceable but for citations in the catalogue
For Salgado's exhibition, irreal, ill, I must; entice her out to the brackish bog
With a beef trachea, or if that is too grisly, a scab of sanitised jerky to jog
Salivation; and will by evanescence enjoy some kind of esoteric dialogue
With the poet living in Paris, 1925.
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