Michael Blackburn
I was not there to witness
the torture of Sisyphus
or see the sweat on the arms
of Ixion but I have heard
lamentations on the wind
as it blows across the fields
and seen the riverbed
dried up and silent
I turned away and looked
at the cherry tree and the long garden
the long garden in the rain
I went into the shop and opened a book
a small black spider ran
zigzag over the pages
across the black and white desert
lost, alarmed, turning this way and that
both of us lost
on the vast surface of this earth
after weeks of sickness
I first saw his form on tv
calf muscles loose on the bone
like any old man’s like my own
wounds on cheek and forehead
in a rigid skin of greening bronze
there’s nothing inside I know
there’s nothing inside but still
the look on his turning, upturned face
have I not suffered enough?
Shadows from the washing line
make a darker green on the grass
where they lengthen, shrink, and lengthen again
like a row of weeds under water.
Suddenly the desire to live by the sea.