• Geoff Page

 

Euclid by Night

 

High schools from the 1960s

with corridors and no front office.

Wayward homesteads, wing by wing,

wandering the generations.

Hotels where the toilets prove

extremely hard to find.

Who are these architects of strangeness,

these deep-sleep, wild geometers

who’ve yet to hear of Euclid?

Who was it said we must forego

the certainties of sunlight?

 

 

 

A Twinge

 

A twinge, a twitch, a dizziness,

short-lived and disconcerting,

a harbinger — but not enough

 

to contemplate the doctor.

It happens at a concert sometimes.

Would the players pause awhile

 

to see me carried out?

I think of those capillaries,

the traffic in my head,

 

so unendurably complex,

contorted, wet and fragile.

How is it they’ve survived

 

so many seasons now?

One flash of summer lightning,

is that how it’ll be?

 

A sudden, final whiteness,

no decibels — or rain.

And sometimes too I think of vealers

 

herded up a crush,

the hammer-gun there raised and waiting,

the steel bolt through the brain.