What Becomes Of The Absent-Minded?
our houses smell of burned apples and pine forests
dripping through ceilings we carry sausages
from room to room with a feeling that
somebody wrote a song about us
we light ovens and cook emptiness
rooms become sweaty raw meat sweats
we remember the sausages we remember the ovens
we forget how to spell ‘margarine’ and look at a Stork
on a plate cut in half in the fjord-deep cold
to remember we are not Nordic translators
we wave in case we’ve met
Josephine Corcoran won first prize in The Stafford Poetry Competition 2012. She lives in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. http://josephinecorcoran.wordpress.com/
I’ve really enjoyed this poem – the layout is just perfect and synonymous with the gaps in memory. Some phrases stand out for me – “cook emptiness” being one – and the ending hits the reader beautifully – “we wave in case we’ve met”. I can identify with that 🙂 Thanks for a great read. I hope I will get to read more of your work.
I am so grateful to everyone who’s read, liked and commented on my poem. Thank you for your encouragement. Josephine.
Hi Josephine, just to say: I like this poem – the rhythm, gaps, wordplay and, most of all, the imagery. Sarah
PS, Hi Josephine, if you publish my reply, please would you include my website. Thank you!