Severance

Tonight the kitchen is quiet.

I sing to end the silence,

to approach my pain

alongside its flank

like a comrade

or a coward

instead of a predator.

And yet

unblinking

its eye still burns mine.

Words, quieted by my mind,

find fuel on my lips

and fill the house –

smoke from a burned pan.

‘So this is the nature of severance:

The leather smith tools

a strong tether

in a short year;

then in a second

I snap it in half.’

18-21 May

The kitchen island