RECOVERY

Woman across the distance
who having sent her husband away
and against everything half done
shuts the study door after her
kneels on the doubt-burned mat
and on top of fritted ash
throws ignorance with screws
of current news under thin kindling
igniting the black and white of it all.

It flares and splinter-sparks
that morning's frost report spitting
shock into the silence.

Drawing to the window
she - in that numb-dying
where faith falls from the spire
and love hides under the bridge
for fear of freezing -
leans against the pane
to catch a glimpse of poetry
shadow-yellow tumbling suddenly
without a breath to dream-drift
in a beam of cold glass moon;
like that I used to think
but now when she slippers back
to shiver at the grate I will be there
stirring coals to flame.

CONCERTO

It's winter.

Birch trees leafless lace
limb-black on thinned blue-ink sky;
the tire treads of the moon-
polished Humber Hawk coming
towards us eyes white-pooling the ice
squishes slush to constant hiss
the ambience like an un-bodied shower.

But there is one other sound
to poignant the cold
to soften the snow
banking the road;
not that of an outlined lark
pouring its emptiness into a bleak
nest or that of a low wind
moaning for spring- it's delicate
like a wish terrified to be born.

We can hear it can't we
a piano concerto in the distance
connected to the car yet- somehow
all around.

We need this don't we.
Huff our hearts while we wait.
For the moment. There's something
solid lasting about the car. Peer closer
between the swipe of the wipers.
We can see them now in the dash-light
His left arm cradling her driving the car
one-handed like you used to.

She sleeps trusting him.The music
braves ardent elevation. She wakes
looks up to him he leans towards her...
Quickly! Kiss me as the car drifts past
before our vision crashes
into the oncoming dark.

Jan Price lives in Ballarat, Victoria. She has won many prizes for her poetry and has been published in Australia, England and America.