One side of the sky hankers after the day

and its vapour trails. The other is dragged down

like fabric in a dogs’s mouth

and its’s a relief, we can stop pretending

and close the curtains and light the gasfire.

The hills and moors recede like silent planets

and the rain hisses on the sea, and the dining chairs

are moved into the living room. Outside it feels like nothing:

like black space. The carpet is littered with tissue crowns

and ribbons and the ash of fallen laughter

Come out with me. Come now, just pull the door to,

And along the pavements, doesn’t matter where

Just outside, keep walking, and if there’s a hill climb it

Sasha Dugdale

The Footprint

Of the fleeing man I have

only the footprint,

the weight of his body,

and the wind that blows him.

No signs, no name,

no country or town,

only the damp

shell of his footprint,

only this syllable

absorbed by the sand

and the earth, Veronica

who murmured it to me.

Only the anguish

that hurries his flight:

hammering pulse,

gasping breath,

glistening sweat,

teeth on edge,

and the hard dry wind

that hits his back.

And the thorn he leaps,

the marsh he crosses,

the bush that hides him

and the sun that reveals him,

the hill that helps him,

and the one that betrays him,

the root that trips him

and God who gets him to his feet.

And his daughter, the blood

the calls out through him:

the footprint, Lord,

the bright footprint,

the mouthless cry,

the footprint, the footprint!

Holy sands

eat up his sign.

Dogs of mist,

cover his track.

Falling night,

swallow in one gulp

the great, sweet

mark of a man.

I see, I count

the two thousand footprints.

I go running, running

across old Earth,

mixing up his

poor tracks with mine,

or I stop and erase them

with my wild hair,

or facedown I lick

away the footprints.

But the white Earth

turns eternal,

stretches endless

as a chain,

lengthens out into a snake,

and the Lord God does not break its back.

And the footprints go on

to the end of the world.

Gabriela Mistral

Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

Autobiography in Five Chapters

I

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I fall in.

I am lost . . .

I am hopeless.

It isn’t my fault

It takes forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I’m in the same place.

But it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in . . . it’s a habit

My eyes are open; I know where I am;