Different windows showing different people doing various activities
They couldn’t give it away, I guess,
so left it by the side of the road,
where, obdurate, it warps.
No gnawed pencils now, no fingers drumming—
just catkin loads
floating across this escritoire,
nailed after Oberon’s band
skewed Snug and Quince’s vision:
an improv, overnight effort
planed with a moonstruck hand,
its driftwood-assortment legs
unanswerable as a colt’s.
Scrapyard rescue, no single
edge flush—three fraying planks,
three widths, burled with gunk-smeared bolts.
Not for a codicil flourish
or crisp blueprint. No pressed wood-and-glue,
but a landing strip for particulars
of uncertain provenance—
not a board true, for the true.
Elise Partridge wrote Fielder’s Choice and Chameleon Hours.
Jeannie Phan (jeanniephan.com) draws for Quill & Quire and the New York Times.
