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Self-portrait after Geoff Cochrane
I
i
Myself in the mirror.
A leathery, stubborn man.
You can hear the genetic stubble.
ii
My adult life has been blind
to the lanes of blood.
Her blood,
his blood.
II
i
Myself at the blackboard.
I look like a cardigan from St. Vincent de Paul’s.
The smell of chalk dust and stale theorems.
ii
Five days,
numb days.
III
i
Myself in Eden.
A bellbird quavers her song of green splashing ice.
My straw head, as deaf as a spade.
ii
My ornery life has been
a charm of apples.
Glass apples,
windfall apples.
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