The Tuesday Poem: Refeaturing Rhian Gallagher’s “Windowpane”

Windowpane

The cat rasps her claws on cabbage tree bark,

a note of bird, full chorus done.

Grasses wear a soft embalm. Twilight

could be ripped with engine roar

or the slam of a door, could be

pre-earthquake crackling. At the window

seeing through then seeing the through

— waved rippled glass

bubbled, a larger lozenge

you press your eye to:

edges fur, earth and tree,

all the old familiar ground

made queer. You live a moment of between

opened in a distraught glass. The glazier

left a perfect tear.

.

© Rhian Ga...