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The Masterpiece is Nearing Completion
I collect
stray stuff from roadside verges,
border country, no man's land –
scraps of tyres, legless dolls,
dead badgers, headlamp fragments,
gnawed human bones, loose beads
from scattered rosaries, neglected
shrines, abandoned building blocks
and sandwiches – bear them home,
spend hours, centuries, reassembling
the picture.
I am
almost there, jigsawing them together,
though there are some awkward gaps
which still require late nights in
overcrowded chat rooms, online
archives, auction sites, where success
is only the right question away or
one more excursion on roads crazy
with impatience, cruising for someone
to jettison the piece I need to complete
my portrait.
I understand
that some few pieces won’t belong,
warped beyond use by weather or the
unanimity of those who care, or are
too perfect to fit, fallen perhaps
from a world more full-
than this where fitting is unconscious,
where roadsides are clean and clear
and leave all drivers undistracted
to cruise their humdrum highways
home.
Prizewinner at Fermoy Intrernational Poetry Festival 2013 and published in The Blue Max Review 2013.