Poetry

Burr

By Linda McKenna

Once full of letters never sent,
unsure how to end, yours faithfully,
with much love; forgiveness
or called in debt, my trinket box
holds brooches, pasta bracelets,
green-coloured pearls, a packet
with baby teeth and a wedding ring.

The veneer is glossy walnut burr,
not created by insect infestation,
or virus, but the stress from a graft
made to block the sap; the result,
prized but fragile, prone to cracking,
resisting the lathe, needing instead
a steady hand, painstaking matching.

The pattern is the orange and brown
you see when you close your eyes
in morning sun. With a child you
could play a game of spotting open
mouths, sheeted ghosts. It is how
my thoughts might look like under
glass; feathers, ribbons, knots, eyes.