A soapstone buddha
paperweight lends gravitas to loose-leaf
sketches of the doors
and windows, ha-ha,
the folly and the ruined relief,
the inkwash of ivy and hellebores.

A bronze figurine,
French, late 18C, crowds the lesser lots,
a nervy line of
burnished nicotine.
Next, engravings of sans-culottes
razing the Bastille, etched with smoke above;

plate-silver service,
a 'modern' atlas coloured with empire,
memoirs of Paris
between the wars, kiss-
curl sweethearts in porcelain, sire
stock paintings, a pamphlet, "Against Hubris"—

your shoes, the shell pink
satin with the Deco heels, the tissue
wrappings, reminded
me of New Year's, zinc
bathtub cooling fizz, the horseshoe
of roses, the wishing star love blinded.

A stranger took your
diaries. The secret nod, a sign for sign
and all was his. The
light rays bend in pure
white ribbons through the room. A fine
dust shrugs its weasel anonymity.

 

Copyright © Estill Pollock, 2003

Estill Pollock has recently completed the trilogy Decorative Initials for a Book of Hours. His first collection, Constructing the Human, which is the opening movement, was published in 2001 by Poetry Salzburg Press; it is followed by Theories of Fugue and Tsunami Muses, selections from which are forthcoming from Flarestack Publications in 2003 and 2004. American by nationality, he lives in Essex.