Late morning and mist hangs above the valley.
The day, like the neighbour’s cows,
has nowhere to go. They crop grass. One raises
her rear leg and twists from neck
to spine to lick upward on her flank.
Love starts otherwise:
with a precise glance across a room
you relieve after all these years,
an éclat less lightning than hammer blow,
as in the abattoir of your childhood
you have turned your back on.
A slap, you say, that set you breathing.
But it is the in-between that we end up living,
the days of low cloud and no wind,
a grey light that endures till its fade into night,
the effort of walking round and round a room,
of preparing coffee, of saying I need you
with no idea at the beginning
what that might mean, no idea now
what else it possibly could.
The cattle live as they can.
They stand still, lift their heads, stiffen a moment
for the slight convulsion of the rumen,
then resume what they know
they must do.
Here is the cup, my love.
Lean toward me.
And I’ll hold it.
— George Sipos, from The Glassblowers
