Valerie
Sinason, 1986
Mrs Atlas on
her shift in the desert
(husband in
hospital with a broken back)
Holds out
her shopping bag and sighs
Such a
shopping bag, frayed and distended
crammed and
torn
Such a black
hole of a shopping-bag
to hold the
universe in
to stop the
continents colliding
to stop the
planets falling out
To stop the
fallout
She is
scared the seas could forget their vast cool nests
and fly to
dry land
She is
scared the stars could drop
like drawing
pins from a pinboard sky
and the
sand, the grains of sand
would get in
everywhere, like they do in sandwiches in picnics
She has been
told many times by pilgrims, heroes and sight-see-ers
that she can
put down her bag
that there
is a design plan.
Trains and
tides run on time
Sun and moon
turn on and off like taps
An envelope
of flesh stops inner seas from spreading.
The
Management have declared the post obsolete
They offer
golden handshakes
But she has
not got a hand to spare
Her husband
encourages her with postcards from his hospital
He warns of
lost space shuttles, falling limbs of planes
He can not
join her for a long time
The doctors
say his back can bear no weight.
Mrs Atlas
does not mind.
She knows
that the world turning without her out of control
would leave
her leave her
Hurtling with
the loose ends
the spiky
green tears of rain forests
the stinging
grains of sand
the visiting shadows in the hospital