Kate Maxwell - Poetry
“Gifthorse”
By Kate Maxwell
Gift horse
This unexpected offer of hours, days
I would have once called possibility
and begged for its embrace
like a dazed teen groupie
ready to kneel and suckle on its glory.
Time’s former crass dismissal
of my needs, no object to
this temporal adoration.
And once I’d named it master
Time stayed, splaying out
lazy limbs for me to lay beside
caress the sinews of its constancy.
I stroked and worshipped
ever grateful for its crush
of frantic rush, its henchmen
wasting haste with long deliberate
breath. And revelled in the way
it tamed that fast-twitch monster
who’d flung me task to task
from meal to sleep, now silenced
cowered underneath the bed.
So, in the first flush of Time’s
love it was my only captain.
But now, my lover bores me.
Stretching vowels, drawing out
every sentence and pushing me to ponder
not the volumes waiting on the shelf
nor the ever-changing colours of the sky
the hum of a quiet Autumn day
but the chafing patches on my elbows
an Internet quiz on ‘Who I’d be
If I was a Hollywood Star’
and how to bake a loaf of bread
from tending stinking mould.
I could, do so many other things
with my blank boring lover
but sadly, Time and I
are not on speaking terms
and I will squander it, just for spite.
Kate Maxwell is yet another teacher with writing aspirations. She’s been published and awarded in Australian and International literary magazines such as The Chopping Blog, Hecate, Blood and Bourbon, fourW, and Social Alternatives. Kate’s interests include film, wine, and sleeping. Her first poetry anthology, to be published with Interactive Publications, Brisbane is forthcoming in 2021. She can be found at https://kateswritingplace.com/publications/