Museum, male bust, First frost, The Prodigal
by Nathan Hamilton
[ poetry - october 06 ]
Museum, male bust
He's drunk and loud:
'And you could be anyone,
Anonymous stone;
They should flesh you out with paints,
Were you blonde or brown?'
Laughs. They blunder on for Rome.
Your head, weightier than mine,
Stares, unmoved in shifts of air.
Around you: silence
Like a falling vase
First frost
Leaving, my hand recoils
At the cold iron of the gate -
Another reminder. The year
Bristles with change.
We can suddenly talk
At the garden's far wall, point out
Our drifts of breath,
A gathering ground of white.
Our numbers have thinned,
Come apart. We avoid
The subject. Absence
Keeps conversation short
The prodigal
Returning home
Towards the early hours,
Flies bump the one dim lamp
In broken orbit. The air is thick
Again, and just as damp and cold.
A door closes. You're upstairs still,
Baffled, alone
Lunatics
'Just look at this,'
You insist - we're both up now
To witness the bathtub
Catch luminous, pale blue.
The window is closed
To less than half a moon;
We are surprised
At how much light gets through
