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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781775589433 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Auckland University Press |
| Publication date: | 06/19/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 80 |
| File size: | 822 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Night Horse
By Elizabeth Smither
Auckland University Press
Copyright © 2017 Elizabeth SmitherAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77558-943-3
CHAPTER 1
My mother's house
Once, near nightfall, I drove past my mother's house.
She was inside it, moving about some task.
I saw her move from room to room.
I could have stopped. Shortly she would draw the blinds
but a knock on the door might alarm her
who had her routine for night.
It was all those unseen moments we do not see
the best of a friend, the best of a mother
competent and gracious in her solitude
as if she was concentrating as she had as a child
on something she was reading or pondering
a thought that occupied a minute of a day
and brought her pleasure at her own competence
to take a minute, to exist inside it
as still as the minute was to itself
neither neutral nor particular but she made it
who would soon walk into the last room
of her life and go to sleep in it.
Miss Bowerman and the hot water bottles
'Tiny maids are strongest,' the housekeeper said
when my mother was interviewed for Government House.
'She looks too small to lift a mouse'
but for screwing on Royal hot water bottles she was queen.
The thought of a flooded bed was too much
for any major-domo to bear. 'Fetch Miss Bowerman
and let her apply her wrists, child-sized,
to the bladder of near-boiling water
to warm the sheets, the vice-regal feet
or rest against the spine that stood
bored and rigid in a receiving line
and listened all night to boring speeches.'
Next morning she was called again
to undo the work of her marvellous wrists.
'Miss Bowerman, can you let out the water?'
Swimming with our fathers for Beth
You used to swim with your father and
I used to swim with mine. The same
beach but perhaps never at the same time
though that's a possibility. We'd never met
when aged ten or thereabouts, we swam
in our ruched swimsuits, our flat chests
with our handsome fathers. Mine
going further out than I dared –
or maybe he was protecting me from the sea –
swam breaststroke in. I saw his legs
snap and open like scissors, his head
regarding me and my dog paddle.
And you, my long-time friend, saw your
father too, floating on his back, but
turning his eyes, time and again, towards you.
Day breaks in dressing gowns
In your double bed, raised on a little platform
your two figures in dressing gowns, backs against
the headboard, are sipping cups of tea.
Two dear dressing gowns, one blue, one white
their sashes tied, though out of sight.
Perhaps your toes are stretching beneath the covers
toes you would recognise if they were stolen away
one toe overlapping on the left foot (high heels)
the other (male) pristine and soft.
No need for dressing gowns in the summer air
one made of towelling, one of poplin
but how they dress you, how I applaud
standing in the doorway, robed in
a spare I found behind my door.
I know you so well, I think,
and the dressing gowns seem to concur.
I hope never to hold them in my arms
empty forms and dangling sleeves over which I weep.
Wedding car
For your wedding we hired a 1926 Nash
in deep forest green, straight sides
like corsets pressed in and then some more
(the curved cars on the road looked askance
as if Rasputin had appeared among them
severe and poisonous and prim).
A white ribbon ran from the chauffeur's window
to the flying naked lady. The wheel spokes gleamed
and measured each revolution like time
and though, today, someone else will ride in it
you are both still there, on the back seat
with its sense of discipline, its stuffing
of horsehair, not foam, your bouquet reflecting
the subdued light from the narrow back window
as if it has thrown and caught itself.
Eyebrows, toenails in memory of Jeny Curnow (1931–2013)
Eyebrows, toenails, the either ends of Jeny
today will be attended to by the beautician.
Toenails first, I imagine. Jeny on a footstool
looking perhaps at a print on the wall, a curtain
moving in the air. The little moon shapes fall
and are swept up. Now the dye
for the beautifully arched, slightly quizzical eyebrows
that Jeny always wears. Not a questioning
Why are we here, why have eyebrows at all?
but a shared amusement: a moon
on either side. Even in maintenance
there is a perfection of sorts. Jeny
rises and walks. Her sandalled toes
when summer comes show extra flesh
her eyebrows gleam (the dye takes
weeks to fade) on her bright face.
Slippers for Viva
At the last your feet swelled and their shape
changed to a caricature of a foot. How
strangely arched, it seemed, the foot
you lifted from your only fit, the slipper.
All you could wear: slippers befitting a Mandarin
in maroon velvet with embroidered uppers
the widest size for your stiff high arch
to slide into, without a chance of straightening.
Racks and racks of shoes you possessed
boots and stilettos, sandals light as air
buckles, straps, suede, satin. Surely they
could have assembled into one hybrid pair
fit for your poor stiff foot that seemed
like a dinosaur trying to enter a building
the ceiling too low for the neck, the tail knocking
over the walls, the head like your pointing big toe?
Amy in hospital with broken wrists for Amy Reigle Newland
The last time you were in Kyoto you told me
you stood at the grave of Toyohara Kunichika
the artist you loved so much, and bowed
despite his paramours, despite his reputation
(we used to carouse a bit on Tuesday nights
gorging ourselves at the fish restaurant)
compared to Kunichika we were paper dolls
he would have laughed at the sauce running
down our chins, our modest two glasses of wine
and now, the day we're due to feast again
in another city, with other friends, he strikes
at a crossing in the guise of a madwoman
knocking you to the ground and breaking both your wrists.
At your grave visit, under your breath, you'd given him
his marching orders: your thesis was complete and handed in.
In your hospital robe, in your curtained stall where
we all push in to commiserate, you seem
from your high bed to be holding court.
An orderly appears. The pain, you say, is 6.
The orderly is sceptical. I think you're overjoyed your
lover's risen from the tomb and eaten all the shrimps.
Ironing shirts
A friend, paying for hospitality, once
ironed a great quantity of business shirts
of the husband of the hostess.
Over the backs of the dining-room chairs they hung
stripes and plains, finest Egyptian cottons
until the room was full of arms
and necks: she left the fronts unbuttoned.
The scent of ironing outdid the bowls of flowers
on table and dresser and a bowl of potpourri
while I, watching, marvelled at
a sort of swimming with the iron
a familiarity as it raced
along a sleeve or down a placket
having first flattened the seams
and done the collar, yoke and cuffs
of different styles and depths. It seemed
an intimacy with a man greater than
a diary or appointment book. Thin stripes
or wider, one was pink, washed-out
like blood, rinsed and re-rinsed until
it barely blushed though still stood out
among the white shirts for a week.
Finally the iron was set at ease. Folding began.
The dry air resumed its accommodating damp
the chairs were cleared as if from cloaks
and six flat shirts on either hand
were taken off to rest on shelves.
A fall of hair for Kate
'I've always wanted to be my own baby,' you said.
At that moment you were unwinding your hair
so your sleepy child could fill her fist
with an anchorage of shining silk.
Women who play with their hair or hire it out
are strong in our family. There must be a gene
for stroking hair as a prelude to sleeping
for twisting a long strand through the fingers.
It wasn't just hair you were thinking of as your
fingers loosened and your child's cheek touched
yours but a wish that self-love might be
as uncomplicated as this fall of hair.
Tidying away the china
After the dinner party china lay
crushed by the fireplace and on the carpet
powdered and crunching underfoot
where the children found it.
Early they'd found it. Crept downstairs.
They'd slept through the Greek dancing
the plan to smash an old dinner service
hated because of its pattern.
Arms around shoulders they'd danced and smashed it
until it lay, a suspicious white powder
or in shards beside the table legs.
Too late to clean it, they'd retired.
Besides what Greek after such dancing
and drinking and toasting would sink
with a dustpan and brush to her knees
as if the dancing had been mistaken?
The children (three) stood in the doorway
touching the first shards on the carpet
like harsh white sails stiffened by salt
and salt of parents' failure in their hearts.
Softly they brought out brushes and buckets
swept up the powder, lifted the shards
tipped them all into a dead black sack
before they crept in single file to bed.
Mid-morning brought the parents yawning
into the miraculously restored dining room
not a trace of a plate, a splinter or a crumb.
The children looked on from the curve of the stairs.
An apple tree for Ruby
You can run as fast as Atalanta
who bowled three apples at her suitors
Double Red Delicious
with skin that blushes, almost empurpled
incarnadine on the grass
causing them to bend and stumble
and with strong white teeth bite into
flesh so juicy their chins glisten
as they raise their eyes to catch your heels.
Ruby and fruit
Today she's eaten ten grapes and a mandarin.
On another day two bananas and a pear.
Easter Sunday was a chocolate embarrassment.
Eggs in foil were hidden everywhere
until the taste of sweetness palled.
She sits in an armchair with her bear
watching a kitten sheriff lasso
a lawbreaker and lead him off to jail.
The grapes are replenished, surreptitiously.
Here comes her hand: eleven, twelve
grapes that match Sheriff Callie's hat
the softest girl colour in the world.
The body of a little girl
She likes fruit not sweets. Is this the reason
no baby fat ever came near her? That she
is shaped like a beautiful slender vase
or a wading bird. That nudity is so natural to her
because of the way she shapes the air
as she passes through it, leaving such
a sublime cut-out we can't help
adoring the perfection spare – there's
none unused – flesh makes as she moves
across the grass to her paddling pool
into which she steps like Venus
her arms wide, not crossed in the tradition.
Meeting the Pope
If you met the Pope
he'd say your name and open his arms.
You'd run towards him: Jacqueline, Jacqueline.
You'd kiss his ring. He'd recoil slightly.
In the background a handsome cardinal would smile.
You'd notice his wide scarlet fascia.
You'd ask him about his marvellous new book
for children in which he answers questions worthy of
the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.
'How did Christ walk on water?' And the tender
answer, showing how well he understands children
whose theology is both natural and masterful:
'He did not fly over the water or turn somersaults
while swimming' (a child would think of that).
'He walked as we walk ...' He wrote as we write.
Cat night
The cats are out by the letterboxes
at the ends of long driveways
waiting to see how the night will shape itself.
Black fur is fading into darkness.
Stripes into shadows on the paths.
Only the eyes are growing brighter.
No need to move yet. Let the heat
of the concrete paths rise through the paws
and haunches. Let desire creep out from the flowerbeds
and hedges. Let the street lights mark
the great promenade down which love will come
like black carriages on the Champs-Élysées.
The wedding party of animals
The old cat with the tumour on his brow
will wear a waistcoat and a bow-tie.
The tumour, removed, re-grows and blends
into the tigerish stripes of fur.
The farm dogs too, who at another wedding barked
furiously from a barn as rings were exchanged
will hopefully sit near the cat, adorned
in neck ruffs, a dickey and a tie.
Impossible to tell the bride it may not be
perfect or even possible on the day.
The tumour, black and shiny, is no excuse
not to chase. A tangled tie may droop
underneath a paw. The animals' role
may be mayhem but entertain
the guests with champagne in their hands
showing animals' love is unashamed.
Night horse
In the field by the driveway
as I turn the car a horse
is stepping in the moonlight.
Its canvas coat shines, incandescent.
Around its eyes a mask
a Sienese horse might wear.
No banners stir the air, but mystery
in the way it is stepping
as if no human should see
the night horse going about its business.
The soft grass bowing to the silent hooves
the head alert, tending where
the moonlight glows and communes
in descending swoops that fall
through the air like ribbons
as the horse moves in a trance
so compelling, so other-worldly
it doesn't see the car lights.
Blaming the horse
Now the great saddle-shaped back
takes blame though it goes on chewing
the thinning grass near the fence.
Why did they bring it from Australia?
There it ran in a philanthropist's gift
to the city of Melbourne: smooth acres
designed for such massive pets
that galloped in herds of precedence.
Once when lightning spiked and spooked
the distant hills, the foreground city
I saw Alice – her name, her beauty –
lead her herd in some choreography
unknown to humans who complain
and always seek a willing target. May Alice
soon be brought an apple, a Royal Gala,
her back is broad to bear our blame.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Night Horse by Elizabeth Smither. Copyright © 2017 Elizabeth Smither. Excerpted by permission of Auckland University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
My mother's house,Miss Bowerman and the hot water bottles,
Swimming with our fathers,
Day breaks in dressing gowns,
Wedding car,
Eyebrows, toenails,
Slippers,
Amy in hospital with broken wrists,
Ironing shirts,
A fall of hair,
Tidying away the china,
An apple tree for Ruby,
Ruby and fruit,
The body of a little girl,
Meeting the Pope,
Cat night,
The wedding party of animals,
Night horse,
Blaming the horse,
Alice and the carrots,
Lying in the long grass between two black Labradors,
Ruby and the Labradors,
Morning blackbird on the lawn,
Coup de foudre,
Winged Victory: the Louvre,
Picasso's tenderness,
At the ballet,
The rosin box,
Re-reading Emma,
A friendship through books,
Two books, two bookmarks,
Three Willow Pattern bowls,
Holding hands,
Consolation,
Putting a line through addresses,
Tonia's cemetery,
Roadworks,
Driving with Amy in the MG,
Gold and dust,
A landscape of shining leaves,
Tenderness,
The mountain,
Perigee moon,
Spring bulbs,
Flying over Spain,
8 little poems about Canberra,
Hay bales,
The tablecloth,
Oysters,
An extra oyster for the Doctors,
The name in the freezer,
The Filipina maid makes the bed,
The strangeness of purple,
A gift of spotted tights,
Wearing fur,
After a gastroscopy,
Ukulele for a dying child,
Young woman at an open casket,
My mother visits me in hospital,
The heart heals itself between beats,
Acknowledgements,