14

poem by Haley Whishaw

It’s Sunday.
It’s Sunday because
through the window, past the half-bloom rhododendrons
and before the forest filled with bee-eating birds,
the car doors of the Baptists, or the Jehovah’s witnesses,
or the Unitarians are slamming and popping like the rain
that has crept across the white ceiling paint as hair-fractures,
the ones which have been mudded over in preparation
for winter and the damp gloom beach rocks
are subjected to with every demanding wave
of salt water pounding into them because
escaping such a pressing weight is difficult
when its above, beside, and below there
are only cotton sheets that
don’t feel like home anymore or the care
by which they had been pulled into straight lines by Mum
who smiled with such polite caution at the mention
of a boy’s name and his feet following her daughter’s up the stairs.