Plaza de la Inquisición

(for pat)

Earle Birney
From:   Fall by Fury. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1977. With permission of the Estate of Earle Birney.

A spider's body
limp and hairy
appeared at the bottom of my coffee

The waiter being Castilian
said passionately nothing
And why indeed should apologies
be made to me

It was I who was looking in
at the spider
It might be years
before I slipped and drowned
in somebody else's cup


Madrid 1963

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

Earle Birney's works copyright © to the Estate of Earle Birney.
Reprinted with the permission of the Estate.