Poem 331

Our flat in Claudelands, back half of a house, the front part occupied by Owen the bottle man … we had (unbelievably) no heating whatsoever until Lynette cracked and bought a single secondhand bar heater … Hamilton winters were damp freezing and summers humid broiling, quite the contrast …

Myrtle Street

This place in winter
is a thing to itself
in siege against the weather
cold cracking
and twisting in through the old boards
we give painfully each step
before winter's war of attrition
as cold claims the rooms
one after another
and our house
like a ragged retreat from Moscow
draws in on itself
curling and cupping
stiff wooden fingers
round our bed
to shelter a last thin flame

but in summer
the house unwinds creaking
from its knots
like petals the doors
and windows open
to invite the weather in
now the house pants
like an old dog in the sun
and restless
we wander through the dim heat
swatting at flies