The Craft's Souk

        There's a glass blower.
        The solid daub ledge
        holds a cotillion
        of green and blue glass-
        breakable shapes spun
        as he blows and pulls and dips
        and spills and whips  and drops

                                                     and pulls                                                       

a
                              cobra
            
        from liquid glass dripping and twirled.
        
        The hot furnace
        is a nest of orange red
        in the dusky room.
        Night is outside
        and we stand near enough
        to be warmed by the stove.
        Desert nights can be colder
        than you think.

        I hold the youngest child,
        and feel him twitch and twist
        as the glass blower    moves
        with arms stretched up and out suspending
                                red glass
        
        that drops into a iridescent swan.

poem copyright ©2000 Anne Selden Annab

 

Published Harrisburg Review 1998