• Lucinda McKnight

 

desktop

            is a word

                        slammed shut

open it

            and you will find

a dusty leather map

fingerprint dappled

teardrop splattered

monocle-ringed by me

                                   in my cups

and starred with sequins

from a Vegas costume

                                   I should sew

a burnished timber rim

and a fine brass plaque

seminary-screwed

manilla folders with

pillow slip corners

the scalpel Leonardo

sketched on flesh

point secured

                                   in a blob of putty

a kimono sleeve

of white petals

under a stick crammed

                                   jam jar

a lamp that pools

hot amber light

a soldering iron for

melting lead

pencil shavings from

Californian Redwoods

a soldier lying

                                   face down

tiny cows, belted Galloways

a broken chair, dolls-house made

a cold golden crane

with scissor beak

oily pastel smears

                                   mauve and green

Degas wiped his fingers there

a battery, all emerald crusted

and last

a lump of clay

a child

has pressed into

                                   a lily pad

desk top

take out the space

and all this feels

like nothing

                                   but a window.

 

 

 

This poem is part of a responsive collaborative sequence about digital metaphors written with Ruby Todd and Owen Bullock, emerging from the joint Deakin University/University of Canberra Write | Connect Symposium 2014.