Pearl fishing

I’ve used brackets instead of indents because I can’t work out how to do them on here. Bit outside my comfort zone, this one…

 

Pearl fishing

 

In a shed somewhere in your imagination

(it has to be a shed, or possibly a garage,

in a thought-up street of terraced houses

or on an allotment running down to a canal

where ducks play havoc with brassicas)

there’s a shelf. A shelf gritted with metal filings and dust,

and jammed between a socket set and garden stakes

you’ll find an embroidery thread knotted around

a horseshoe magnet.

 

Different from the magnet used for finding missing screws

or windlasses in the canal’s margins

(where it comes up dripping with nothing more than mud

and surprisingly glittery drops of water)

this one isn’t painted red around its curve.

It comes from imagination, remember, and works best

with a horizontal owner. Dropped dead centre through a forehead

it’s good for trawling doubts

(or whatever else you want to drag it through).

 

 

RMB