Sport 19: Lightworks
Chris Price — Illuminated Window
Chris Price
Illuminated Window
Empty of shadows and making a shadow
Sitting in with
this family, sprawled
on its furniture
you are made to ask
the simplest questions.
Is it their sun
or hours? Which way do shadows
run here, what hemisphere
is this, that grants observer status
at a patient barnyard colloquium
on the globe and all its bright
ideas, where the delegates tell
by showing what you think
you know but are not
slow enough to understand.
Imagining you don't belong
here, a sulky teenage visitor
sentenced to a long stretch
in the country without television,
detained among elderly aunts
and longing for razzle dazzle, not reflection
you hang out below the washing line
or at the window with its missing
pane and overlook the way
the world drops in
‘for your entertainment
and edification’—
travelling showman,
suitcase filled
with the properties of light.