POETRY – Asking the Difficult Questions by David Briggs
Asking the Difficult Questions
Just as he might break into the deserted house,
sidle crabwise the sag-sad doorframe,
retract a steadying hand from its splintered lintel;
as he might scuff up dust and dead spiders,
the browned, thinly-strewn newsprint;
bat the bare bulb, set it swinging like Tyburn;
he might pause in the silence, count the Death watch
tick-tock from doomed joists and rafters;
might risk gingerly the febrile staircase,
tread the pepper-shot landing, shoulder a door,
jemmy the wardrobe, set coat-hangers jangling,
run a finger through dust on the dresser;
collapse on mouldering bedclothes, sigh
from his stomach, sleep through the sirens—far-off,
somewhere other; and hunker there gladly: his head
a deserted house, into which no-one has broken.
David Briggs is a former Eric
Gregory Award winner and is
Head of English at Bristol
Grammar School.
