April Fool’s
Day breaks again,
again my pen rest between
my forefinger and thumb
poised: To spill ink over
this page.
I hear birds chirping,
joining lustfully with the
waking roar of engines,
people-movers for this factory country.
Puttering, puttering,
and a few rude slaps of
footsteps on a pavement
somewhere below me.
Derrida, Donne,
Shakespeare and de Beauvoir
lie stacked up on my table,
Milton, Plato and Marlow
in another pile.
“This is my art” so a post-it
tells me,
as I look at each
creased spine and worn face,
remembering Eve.
A bang of the metal gate,
my father at the door,
to work again, he, a builder
all his life. My mother
off to school.
Click. Click. They leave.
And I shall make my departure
soon.
