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…
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