Poem of the week: Kist

Tall trees are a hymnal even slight winds know by heart,
and stars and traffic, between them, remind me I'm not alone
or at least not any more alone than stars and traffic are.
Mornings are writing; afternoons, repairs. That seems to work.
Nights are a chair for reading about places other than here.
From time to time I open the blue door to ask the world,
What's up? Mostly, the world replies, Oh, you know.
And I do: it could be worse.

I wake in a lean-to bedroom modelled on a casket
with a window at the foot. I prefer to call it a kist,
of course I do, with the knapsack of age-old innuendo
that word carries on its back. Coffin and coffer,
lipped and tongued; the box I climb into
and out of again every time I write a poem.

Today’s poem is from Vona Groarke’s new collection, Link: Poet and World (The Gallery Press)