Boxes by Kate Tattersfield
Demand, supply, profit
from merits bright and blowsy
in a 10am bouquet where
petals perfume contemplation,
prickles catch inside the throat
and pollen dots negotiation.
Boardroom: sacred rectangle—
place of information.
Mirror image of the vision
leads into slow live action
in a glass house, sacred rectangle—
place of incubation.
Earth that tuber,
bulbous tuber—infantile,
promised tuber—
in the dark, alchemic soil—
cased in squares, set out in rows
by limbic hands that feel deeply
and are practised and parental
until the light rotates through
60 minutes—elongated, and on the
hour meets, in a flood, dots of
green all propagated
in the pale, sacred rectangle—
the place of maturation.
Individual
individuals
pricked to self—
longing, fully
painful, loving
gobbling space,
whipping time,
freezing frames—
onto pallet
stacked on pallets
in the lorry—sacred rectangle:
place of transportation.
Rattle, rattle all in rows,
the jig of things to come; packaged,
rattle to the drone
of lanes and slip road to A1,
on and on through magic hour—
or the heady break of dawn—
past the line
break through the suburb,
in square containers, to the Aldi:
sacred rectangle,
the place of distribution.
In the absence of a midday sun,
a yearning takes its root
in the heart of one dear being
for a gift to give to you.
So, here it is: a sweet begonia
all aglow in silken glory,
buoyed by autumn’s doting touch
in your sacred, golden garden;
sacred garden, golden rectangle
of all imagination.
Kate Tattersfield is a librarian living in London. She writes fiction, poetry and music, and plays the flute in Hackney Community Orchestra. Her writing has been published in zines and journals, such as Death of Workers Whilst Building Skyscrapers, Between Shadows Press, Myth & Lore and Peculiar Mormyrid. Her song ‘A Fathom Deeper’ appears in Ambient Receiver. You can follow her on Soundcloud and Instagram.
