(after Grace Cossington Smith’s Interior with wardrobe mirror 1955)

I knew you weren’t coming back by how you left the wardrobe doors open.
You always say it’s me who does that.
Today I closed them.

And undid in our careful shelf you picked,
your colour coordinating of my wild books.

Now colour in my room is a big cat sprawled in sun.
Fat yellows, surprisingly thin blues.

Anne Walsh

 

Anne Walsh is a poet and story writer. She was shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize twice and for the ACU Prize for literature. Her work is widely published in print and online, including two poetry collections: I Love Like A Drunk Does (Ginninderra Press, 2009) and Intact (Flying Island Books 2017); and a short story, ‘The Rickman Digression’ (Glimmer Train 2013).

© 2018