There's no comfort wanting the night
                to be an oracle split open like a sigh

                suggesting this quaking should stop.
                I've cursed everything from the slip

                of the moon to Ganesh's broken tusk
                and wondered if the present is confused

                by the past and the past is a book
                shoved under a window to let air rush in.

                What if the car stops leaking oil
                and grass turns into a miracle of lawn?

                I'll learn to paint murals on landslip walls
                and name flowers that are blue. Plumbago

                is one but what if the others are bruised
                by the ravages of another bloody war?

                                

Copyright © Alison Eastley, 2003.  All Rights Reserved.