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When our minds have shut their doors,
rooms filled only with dark air
hum as if the house, eyes closed,
rests on a pillow dreaming,
every chink open softly as a mouth.
Dreamer, we thought we knew your body
like an alphabet we'd learned by heart:
the small dark places
like blood under a thumbnail,
a crescent of shadow
hidden inside a cupboard,
the skeletal elbow of the stairs bending,
your skin so transparent it's like
two inches of tap water in the bath.
But now all that matters is the light:
the sharp slit under the attic door
rushing forward thin white arms open
wide enough to fill an auditorium
while we, suspending disbelief,
sink down in our seats to watch
the house begin to swing
around its mooring like a boat.
In the shifting wind the attic door
blows open like a shining example.
Now we're seeing that other place,
twilit as the underside of the sea.
We're seeing where the wild duck lies,
the colour of water hiding at the bottom,
in a new kind of drowning.
Nothing is less certain than this
vast handkerchief of ocean rumpled
by the wind, this low miniature sky,
the wild duck dabbling her orange feet,
looping her neck in thought under her wing.
Breathe your secret breath, wild duck,
fluttering like a god in the dark.
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