Robyn Lance: Three Poems

What the woodwork reveals

Walking with a limp, a lockstephopstep

that jolts hip and frame down Main Street

I see an unnoticed-until-this-day array of hobbling, rollicking, movement-challenged gimps like me,

the Zimmer-pushing halt and lame.

A phenomenon first experienced to this extent

when pregnant and, surely,

half the eligible population in the Capital and the burbs

was enceinte

or postpartum with babe in arms or pram.

Like to like.

Limp to limp.

Baby blimp to blimp.

Bemused, I hobble on.

Robyn Lance

The Three Graces, National Gallery of Scotland

Hobbemas and Rubens hang so high

they can only be viewed at a tiptoe stretch.

Visitors are locked into looking at crowded walls

When twelve chimes sound at ten past the hour.

Concessions are made for a clock

that’s ticked off several centuries.

From portraits, idylls and war, I turn

to where, unclad, unshod and unashamed,

(no hint of a blush on their bare white skin)

the Three…