after Shlomo Laufer
and shut her eyes.
She shut the sketchbook and snapped the elastic band round it.
She shut the paintbox and put it in the drawer and shut the drawer.
She shut her brushes in the pedal-bin.
She shut the card the children made spelling both names wrong.
She shut the fridge the oven the washing machine the order book.
She shut the window the studio door the bathroom door the bedroom door.
She shut the questions the questions.
She shut her eyes again. She kept shutting her eyes with her handkerchief.
She shut the lid the lid
on the small white box my father carried,
so he told us years later, holding out his hands:
just yea big.
Anne Berkeley‘s first collection The Men from Praga (Salt) was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney prize. She edited Rebecca Elson’s posthumous A Responsibility to Awe, now a Carcanet Classic.
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