There is a man who sits at the edge of the polluted pool
every morning when I put the kettle on and again in
the evening as I wash-up dishes and make a cup of tea.
All this evening there has been the droning sound of
a marital argument in Mandarin upstairs in
the Party Secretary’s unit, and now the slamming of
this building’s front door with its tricky locks. A moth
flies at the light as I enter the kitchen to make a late night
cup of tea. I’ll use the earlier bag again. I talk
calmly to the moth but it has flown up into
the extractor fan’s hood. No need for heroics, I say.
That’s when the front door really slammed,
even though I put it in earlier in this poem, eager
to get the job underway, to find the next poem. And
form? I often hope to burst into flame, to
whistle forth a libretto or a fresh example of
exotica, as I sit here in tee-shirt and jeans, late night,
typing on a laptop, my back to the window where,
just perhaps - and I will turn around in just a moment
when I’ve finished typing this - where, perhaps,
the next poem sticks its tongue out at me and jeers
in any one of the world’s many tongues,
Catch me if you can, catch me if you can.
There is a man who sits at the edge of the polluted pool
every morning and again in the evening. For all I know
he may be there right now, fishing in the dark, 11.38pm.