Thumbnail sketches
Look how it all goes pale
when you pinch, and floods
with rose as you let go.
That dot is probably not
a planet though, too big
the curved sky too foggy.
Possibly a snowy evening
a chalky moon has risen
east of a cold mauve hill.
The nail on the other thumb
is unspotted, unlit above
its mirror-image prominence.
But you could imagine
Napoleon’s spies making plans
of Portsmouth Harbour there
an art-starved ascetic etching
the word of God upon it
to peep at through the hours
or an exam candidate
cramming it with key dates
and maybe going undetected.
While the first might simply be
a thumbnail of a TV screen
showing morning on a hill.
Dominic Fisher has been published in a wide variety of poetry magazines, and been successful in competitions. His collection The Ladies and Gentlemen of the Dead is from The Blue Nib, 2019. He is a co-editor of Raceme dominicfisherpoetry.com