LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS
Family Gathering
However how long had I stayed there? And where
that there was — while here the hours passed almost quietly
only that every so often you had to choose something or
the rain would start and the heaviest of the servant girls
would get up and bring inside the prophecy or father, who
worrisome, looked at us as if he was guilty that things
wouldn’t talk to us; secretly the clock controlled the house
leading the girls to hiding or mother to her separate room;
but at night the crickets, lying on old caskets, sang to the sick
children and the fool up on the roof wanted all the sleep
to herself until the bloodied moon leaned on the hill like
the poet onto this ancient alphabet.
Libros Libertad 