Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
The drill’s bright bit, its tip, its jewel
In a lane as straight as a child’s rule,
as twilight falls, not dark, not quite,
I swim another lap of the pool.
The water encloses me, comfortably cool.
The attendant passes, flicks on a light.
In a lane as straight as a child’s rule
I swim alone.And though it’s cruel
to keep him here on a Friday night,
I swim another lap of the pool.
My windmilling arms unwind a spool
of roiling yarn, soon lost to sight,
in a lane as straight as a child’s rule.
Fit for the task. I’m the perfect tool.
My dead gaze swerves right, swerves right.
I swim another lap of the pool.
The drill’s bright bit, its tip, its jewel—
I am the pen in the hand that writes.
In a lane as straight as a child’s rule
I swim another lap of the pool.
Tim Upperton’s poetry and fiction have appeared in AGNI, Bravado, Dreamcatcher, Landfall, New Zealand Books, New Zealand Listener, North & South, Reconfigurations, Sport, Takahe, Turbine, and Best New Zealand Poems 2008. He is a former poetry editor for Bravado, and tutors creative writing, travel writing and New Zealand literature at Massey University, New Zealand. His first poetry collection, A House On Fire, was published by Steele-Roberts in 2009. (updated 7/2009)