Poetry
by Annick MacAskill
Waterfowl
Everything else can be left up to the gods:
a week of white nights in the temple have done me no good. At market, they say my brother has slackened the family purse strings for his mistress’s
embrace, a merchant undone by a collage of lipstick and black bra straps, by purple guile and lace. I will not sing of war or empire –
this time the Muse has shown me a battle of bones erecting their defense in quicksand. The boy will find time a fierce opponent, risk becoming
commonplace: a toupéed sea-farer lost in a woman’s sighs like the feeble bittern, alone among the reeds and splashing fervently
at the sound of a hunter’s call, his wings drumming something like passion against the skiff as the river’s mouth widens.
[Distillate © HA&L + Annick MacAskill | {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]
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