spilling out across the open fields?

Still Life with Purple Sage

Where is the woman

whose kitchen this is,

whose hands arranged these spoons

with their worn silver edges?

I want to tell her how patiently

her life is waiting,

the bread knife catching the light

like a meaning,

the thin-stemmed glass

full of the breath it was blown with.

The window’s wide open –

perhaps she’s in the garden

bruising a leaf of purple sage

between her fingers

wondering what to cook tonight

or if she’ll stay?

At the Falls Café

Think of me as the waitress

serving drinks at the Falls Café,

who carries chinking tumblers of iced water

on a tilting silver tray above her head

as she threads the crowds of tourists,

always watching over that solitary guest

who lets the skin grow on his coffee,

whose fingers shred white serviettes,

or circle the edge of his bitter cup,

whose gaze is lost in the rainbows and mist.

Think of my touch

as the hand laid softly on your shoulder

that returns you, blinking, back to earth:

to the unbroken rolls on your table,

this red I invite you now to taste.

After Life

As far back as great, great, great

names and faces

are scoured away

like plates scraped clean

of painted flowers

by daughters wanting more.

What remains

after voice and gesture are lost,

is less love

than force of habit:

the angle of a peeler’s

thinning blade,

the battered wisdom of the pan

you boil the morning milk in,

its patina of burnt lace.

If only I could learn to be

this fit for purpose:

the passed-down smoothness

of handled ash, a dailyness

like prayer or bread

and the mouth’s need of them.

Spare Room in Summer

A private arrangement

between these white walls

and the sun slanting in like a thought:

So this is what the world looks like

when I am not here:

The light hasn’t caught me yet,

is too absorbed

persuading each simple object

of its existence:

the slipware bowl, its creaminess,

the rosewood, its glow.

A door handle gleams

like the foot of an icon

rubbed into brightness.

It’s like being a child again,

the fever gone

but kept home from school one more day,

the coolness of my mother’s other life

as she airs each room of our dreams.

Detail

It may be that somewhere else

more important things are at stake:

angels and infantas,

robes and raiment,

a haloed revelation

with uplifted hands,

that the truth’s already blazing away,

a woman’s life is being changed for good.

I’d rather put my faith

in a light like this:

the chastening glaze

of a china cup

set against a pewter dish

the colour of an overcast sky;

its delicate and sobering touch

as if remembering the face of a loved one

who ate at this table daily.

This Morning

I watched the sun moving round the kitchen,