The face, of what was once myself,
the charm of memory, and life
beyond this creak of dusty shelf,
stares back at me—a whetstone knife
no worse an instrument to mark
the features than the years’ long arc.
As sails of windmills bicker for
the breeze, the mind turns, foreigner
not only here, this metaphor
for longing and regret and stir
of dog-eared exile, but in all
the border places I recall.
The winters black and roaring, shrill
winds, catechism ice and thaw
revealing features of the Will
like storylines of Evelyn Waugh—
the weather calibrates our drift
of life lines as a Doppler shift.
And all the rest, they say, is dust,
or what remains of attic oils,
of portrait hostages to trust
that fade into the gypsy spoils
and grand decay—a testament
confirming nothing that it meant.
Estill Pollock | Finds
Contents | Mudlark No. 74 (2023)