sleight of hand

sleight of hand
december 2014

Pak_Col_Entrance — **Pakuranga College entrance; image sourced from the Japanese site for study abroad ryugakulife.com.**

at high school
with an upward
sweep of the arm
the boy would rake
his hand back through
his wiry hair
look a moment
to the side
fold his arms
even tighter
shoulders hunched forward
before carrying on to
tell the story
fourty years on
the man does
exactly the same
that gesture
suggesting
those same
fourty years
mere illusion
gone with a
sleight of
hand

Click on the link above to hear a reading of the poem. The accompanying music is from the fifth piece, ‘Symphonie II’, from ’12 Études dans les tons mineurs’, Op. 39, by French Jewish composer Charles-Valentin Alkan:, and recorded here by pianist Vincenzo Maltempo.