by Frances Leviston
Egyptian sofas, old anaglypta,
the drop-leaf table where the pine tree posed
every mild December,
on its pedestal the dodo, crackle-glazed,
and hung above the hearth and the dormant fire
a painting I supposed
must be a distant cousin, or a great grandmother,
but was neither of those –
only a junk-shop likeness of a stranger,
all tarnished oils and shadows,
that when my friends visited made them shudder
in the cruel, exaggerated manner of girls.
