Portrait of Anne Hébert
Portrait of Anne Hébert
by D.J. Jones
The sunlight, here and there,
Touches a table
And a draught at the window
Announces your presence,
You take your place in the room
Without fuss,
Your delicate bones,
Your frock,
Have the grace of disinterested passion.
Words are arrayed
Like surgical instruments
Neatly in trays.
Deftly, you make an incision
Probing
The obscure disease.
Your sensibility
Has the sure fingers of the blind:
Each decision
Cuts like a scalpel
Through tangled emotion.
You define
The morbid tissue, laying it bare
Like a tatter of lace
Dark
On the paper.
by D.J. Jones
The sunlight, here and there,
Touches a table
And a draught at the window
Announces your presence,
You take your place in the room
Without fuss,
Your delicate bones,
Your frock,
Have the grace of disinterested passion.
Words are arrayed
Like surgical instruments
Neatly in trays.
Deftly, you make an incision
Probing
The obscure disease.
Your sensibility
Has the sure fingers of the blind:
Each decision
Cuts like a scalpel
Through tangled emotion.
You define
The morbid tissue, laying it bare
Like a tatter of lace
Dark
On the paper.