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Still Life

by Alan Harris
Sunday mind
picks up its pen
behind easy-chair eyes
when, three inches left from a
stained-glass cardinal hanging
red against the window glass
from a suction cup and hook,
is seen a real dove outdoors
fluffed up for warmth
on a telephone wire
amid almost no
snowfall.

Glenn Gould's
Bach Toccatas
play precisely through
the furnace blower's bass
while an off-duty iron
stands unplugged and cool
beside its folded handkerchiefs
on a flimsy-legged ironing board
between here and the brown couch
that bears a draped gold afghan,
throw pillow, and open briefcase.

Eyes divert
to a tiny white nick
in the near edge of the lamp table
and stare for measureless minutes--
then return without reason
to the window.

The dove hasn't moved, nor has the
window's cardinal of glass perceived
this breathless snow, so light
as to be nearly finite.


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Copyright © 1998 by Alan Harris. All rights reserved.