22 NOVEMBER 2008, Page 55

H OW TO P OUR M ADNESS INTO A T EACUP

‘September rain pours on this house ...’ ‘Sestina’, Elizabeth Bishop She hangs her tears at the front of the house cuts the rain in half and puts time in the hot black kettle. She sits in the kitchen reading the teacup full of small dark tears; it’s foretold the man in the wood hovers in the dark rain above the winding path. The man is talking to her in moons, she is laughing to hide her tears and with little time, she secretly plants the moons in the dark brown bed. She shivers, thinks the man is watching as the jokes of the child dance on the roof of the house. Tidying she carefully puts hot rain in the teacup sings as she hangs her tears on a string and watching the dance, thinks herself mad.

Abegail Morley