Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Jane Gibian

Vessels for the lapse of time (1)

Vessels for the lapse of time (1)

Vessels for the lapse of time (1)

1. Nested squares


What could be held in a month
of your calendar, in the pleached grid
of those windows, that spills out of mine
like water overflowing the rectangular

depressions of an icecube tray? A day
melts and stretches lazily into evening
in the sudden summer, and we place
our palms flat against the sun’s captured

heat, coursing from brick walls along
each street: from here each day\'s
a window, lined up in a crooked row
like teeth inside a laughing mouth.

Flattened grass in the shape of our bodies
was still there the day after: we tried
to hold those days in cupped hands
but they trickled slyly through your fingers.

Walking past a window uncovered
to the night, that flash of someone’s life
added to the inventory of sights
I collected to make you smile, an answer

to the compressed biography of postcards,
bound to the span of time in its nested
squares. Daylong we crossed disputed
territories, daylong I looked into

the battered rectangle of a pocket mirror
with its cracked corner and saw myself
divided. In the calendar’s endless fretwork
you give each part of the day equal

thought; weight them evenly in your grasp,
until it’s time to pull at a thread in the day
and watch it unravel behind us.
Close

Vessels for the lapse of time (1)

1. Nested squares


What could be held in a month
of your calendar, in the pleached grid
of those windows, that spills out of mine
like water overflowing the rectangular

depressions of an icecube tray? A day
melts and stretches lazily into evening
in the sudden summer, and we place
our palms flat against the sun’s captured

heat, coursing from brick walls along
each street: from here each day\'s
a window, lined up in a crooked row
like teeth inside a laughing mouth.

Flattened grass in the shape of our bodies
was still there the day after: we tried
to hold those days in cupped hands
but they trickled slyly through your fingers.

Walking past a window uncovered
to the night, that flash of someone’s life
added to the inventory of sights
I collected to make you smile, an answer

to the compressed biography of postcards,
bound to the span of time in its nested
squares. Daylong we crossed disputed
territories, daylong I looked into

the battered rectangle of a pocket mirror
with its cracked corner and saw myself
divided. In the calendar’s endless fretwork
you give each part of the day equal

thought; weight them evenly in your grasp,
until it’s time to pull at a thread in the day
and watch it unravel behind us.

Vessels for the lapse of time (1)

Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère