LINDSAY POPE

 

Self-portrait

after Geoff Cochrane

 
I
 
 
i
Myself in the mirror.
 
A leathery, stubborn man.
 
You can hear the genetic stubble.
 
 
ii
My adult life has been blind
 
to the lanes of blood.
 
Her blood,
 
his blood.
 
 
 
II
 
 
i
Myself at the blackboard.
 
I look like a cardigan from St. Vincent de Paul’s.
 
The smell of chalk dust and stale theorems.
 
 
ii
Five days,
 
numb days.
 
 
 
III
 
 
i
Myself in Eden.
 
A bellbird quavers her song of green splashing ice.
 
My straw head, as deaf as a spade.
 
 
ii
My ornery life has been
 
a charm of apples.
 
Glass apples,
 
windfall apples.
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lindsay Pope paints roofs to get closer to the sky. He writes poems to get closer to the truth.