Catriona Knapman’s most recent poem to appear here was “Souvenir” (June 2017)

Shifts
By Catriona Knapman

A mother caped in a velvet night says the names of the colours in Spanish, with an accent like wind through pines.

                                                            Her son repeats them like a cone falling onto the earth.

A mayor worrying about local participation, cannot sleep, gets up to look for the spaces where the stars used to be.                              

                                                                                    The sky shakes, renounces its jewels.

A priest, buried like a stone in his life, laughs about the future, cultivating flowers from memories and prayers from seed.

An angel offers a rifle and a bottle of honey.

A woman gets up early to tend to the only elephants in Nicaragua, she makes tortillas with peace.

Which yesterday, others threw away.

A sculptor explores each stage of his life, already carved into the stone of the Northern mountains.

His fingers no longer able to meet around the handle of his knife.

Shivering like a blade against marble, he tells his last secrets to the forest. The rocks console a hollow lesson.

Being is not worth more than to be.