• Creative Writing •
• Original Poetry •
Poetry Week: “Kanbara”
Kanbara
I cross the border of snow at night,
breathe in the picture.
Winter stars coalesce with snowflakes,
station hushed by snow,
a figure under a half-opened umbrella
follows footsteps down the slope.
A shutter opens on an old man crazy
with painting. Summer evening
succulent with crickets and the peonies’
perfume. She sits in the doorway, her kimono
akimbo, indigo butterflies on white linen long
to flee to the safety of flowers; she tries
not to move, her eyes reveal nothing,
but in failing light he intercepts
the wildness in her. A sudden gust of wind
disturbs the distance between us.
The shutter closes on three figures
in the foreground dressed in snow.
Nancy Gaffield’s first book, Tokaido Road, was a Poetry Book Society selection, a Forward First Book award nominee, and the winner of the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize (2011). She is a PhD student and Lecturer at the University of Kent, Canterbury.
