they desire decisions
where and
when
it’s the very
middle
of their
time, making
characters outside
in
cup to lip,
about
to get out
of bed
hand on
door handle
the mystery
of how
they are, often, how
they
surprise themselves
so what to
make choices
with,
a tarot card
a rune
the pattern
of numbers
a language
of dream
or myth
to ask why, and
how to ask?
the shape
of a word its sound
the picture
it makes its echoes,
can these make the decisions?
It's all I have in this.
Fiction's too hard for me; I don't have the patience. But when I was a little girl, I didn't play with my dolls the way other little girls did – I moved them around, having them act out stories.
ReplyDeleteInteresting poem. And I love the graphic, being fond of wood and stones.
I love the last line which refers to the poem itself, as much as to the struggle to write fiction.
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful, Sarah - did you once ask about the materiality of language in a poem? Here it is (in sticks and stones, too).
ReplyDeleteI found the arrangement of wood and stones just on the footpath in a carpark, it is wonderful isn't it? I it a game, or a spell, a whimsy, a message? And I have been wanting to use the image with a poem, and though enigmatic, I liked it with this one. Dolls acting out stories is very apt I think, how they take life.
ReplyDeletelovely!
ReplyDelete