After Lartigue
A voiceless yelping,
the air like translucent tar
dog thrown in the pond.
That sudden splash, like
the great wide world's end, the lungs
burning, astounded.
Muzzle in the air
that is green and damp as rot,
and dusk is dropping.
*Padrika Tarrant was born in 1974. Emerging blinking from an honours degree in sculpture, she found herself unhealthily fixated with scissors and the animator Jan Svankmajer. She won an Arts Council Escalator award in 2005. The Knife Drawer is her second full-length book; Broken Things was published by Salt in 2007. Padrika quite likes sushi, although she tends to pick the fish out. She hates the smell of money.