17 APRIL 2004, Page 38

So What's New?

Lying awake, I correct to straight the crooked neck that's caused me years of pain by tilting my head off true.

A minuscule adjustment, but one I must make. 'Doctor, will it alter my world view?'

A pitying Dalrymple look.

No answer needed. I knew.

This is not the poem that I meant to write tonight, coffin straight, adjusting myself to the grave. That poem was to be something brave about the Jews walking from Poland to Palestine. By the time I'd found paper, pen and a light, I could think only of my own neck.

Barbara Cormack