Peoplewatching: Tankas
Watershed
Lone face: it was his
in a grey pavement puddle.
The stars wreathed his head:
Narcissus in the asphalt,
solace in his solitude.
Lipstick
It was a pale ghost
of those prior joys, haunting
white cotton’s nape. Yet,
he has uncollared himself;
he is not the past’s clergy.
Waiting
It was an eclipse,
a blink that was like a night,
just a pause to pass.
The heart is a sundial
patient for each love-lit while.
Starling
Like embracing air,
Quick wings fluttered in the loft.
The love flew elsewhere;
with him, below, lay peace in
the sleep between hearts’ wingbeats.
The Happy Mundane
A vain sun crouches
to look in winter gutters.
His left palm feels fine
while brushing the empty air
where the one right one could be.
Blair Center is a writer from Inverurie, in the North-East of Scotland. Center has had poetry published by Dreich, Poetry Scotland, and The Hyacinth Review. Whether in English, Scots, or his local tongue, Doric, Center finds that themes of nature, memory, identity, and place particularly and consistently motivate his work