Slower than the canal water
gently brushing, tilling, its sed-
­imentary bed

I watched the curve of mouth begin to move and knew
that words had formed, then fallen mute,
upon their sheets; it wasn’t

the gentle sparks which flanked
the air between the clank of factories’
grinding machines
but rather something

else entirely that caught my eye; it could
have been the bleaching shore of cloud

nestling infant-like amongst the
crimson nipples of window-pane-esque
rays (this sun that neither rises nor sets

this sun that homes a world which turns
upon an axis both mysterious and caged)
that brought the thought right back to roost:

this recollected body, turned downward
into the snow, and then, the paramedics
lifting its foetal shape, exposing that face-

like a womb recently emptied of child—
the molasses of neodymium slush, a perfect contour

geometric with the angled twitch of siren lights

somewhat akin to flaming bracts
of bougainvillea wrapped around
the handle
of a stonewashed door.

 

Copyright © Chris Brownsword, 2005.

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Chris Brownsword was born in Sheffield in December 1981. He is currently working toward a first collection of his poetry.