'Hope' was published in
famous reporter #29, (page 82) in June 2004.
Lucy Williams was co-editor of the poetry journal ars poetica from 1995-97. Five Islands Press published her first poetry collection, 'Birthmarks' in 2000. She lives in Melbourne.
Other poems by Lucy Williams
advice to the woman you will love
LUCY WILLIAMS
hope
hope floats in her coffeepot placed in the middle of the
blue-tiled bench the way the table is wiped clean after
every meal how routine gets under your nails like dirt and
won’t wash out she tidies each small room vacuums the
floor in case of friends watches the book she is reading
and knows that it goes on without her through her large
windows winter skates the neighbourhood her television
set is a lie asleep and dreaming of truth she likes the
people on TV breaks hearts with them over a meal
understands the love she craves could not be good for
her the words she waits for are slow in coming she
constructs a letter from these slow words all winter the
letter makes the hard slog to the end of the page she
checks her age like a watch can’t understand how it got
so late how rough the past kissed her always trying it on
it is a letter to herself remember it tells her where you are
right now how your daughter laughs in this house with
her birth-tree outside how your husband’s arm anchors
you at night to every possibility and the good side of your
heart is a river of blood moving fast and the bad side is
the stone that comes to land there