Boxing the Compass by Carol Coiffait

Boxing the Compass
by Carol Coiffait

You can stay
in one place
only long enough
to find your way
to the chip-shop,
the bus-stop
and back home

Or longer
to make a net
of seven
interlocking
streets, a leaping
stag from the old
tree at the corner
and to watch
the stars
slide west
along the wires.

More than half
a life spent
in one place
and you are shunted
from the horizon
to the river-smell
into a taxi-cab, a bar
and back again
on one street name
a half-remembered face,
a certain quality
of light or rain
past 'I worked here.'
to ' Loved in vain'
You ricochet
from then
to now
and back
in memory lane.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• carol coiffait
• ipoetry
• thisisull.com