Poetry

In the Dust

That peep-show movement passing through a single phase

play-acted classical problems of how time passes through an instant.

                        —Douglas Oliver

I can breathe dust when I blow

my nose it is white, Portland

working lack lacking of metal on

metal to propel my ideas slowly, like

a good casserole, into stone.

It seeps into skin, deep whitening

under nails even after showering

white pasted knuckles, particles

nestled between fibres of fabric.

Always the knees of jeans are

patched pale I imagine the million-years

crushed cells compacted now

released, my chisel creating from and of

dust deforming what has been there longer

then I can think of, even its metal

worn down and flecked off by the

crystalline miniatures of calcite.

Muscle fibres meld into close-aligned

atoms strong metallic moves millimetre by

millimetre thumb on top pressing

gently to angle millions of tiny structures

—elements and their bonds—into my own.

These things that I make remain, are

beautiful and underfoot the underground

rumbles, its belly aching.

On the floor of the workshop despite

our weekly sweeping purge the

footprints of our working

danced out in the dust.

Jo Hateley