Tuesday Poem - Snowflake by Anthony Lawrence

Snowflake

My mother kept a snowflake

in the freezer all winter.

Each time she opened the door

of the refrigerator

she would make a sound

like a Burmese kitten

being surprised by itself.

When I asked how she could tell

her snowflake from so many

crystals of ice, her smile

revealed the sapphires she'd had set

into her front teeth, and she said

'Mine has worn an intricate

indentation as though

hot lace had passed

between the peas and ice cream.'

I settled for that, as I knew how hard

she had to work to keep level.

At dinner I would pretend

to be a good son, and her smile

enameled the table

with points of dark blue light.

I was passing through Sydney last year and happened to be staying around

the corner from the Friend In Hand in Glebe where Puncher & Wattman were

launching a couple of books. One of them was Signal Flare by Anthony Lawrence.

Now this is a book that is stuffed full of wonderful poetry and the difficulty for me

was which one to choose. Anthony Lawrence just keeps on getting better and
 better. After much dithering I went with Snowflake (and not The Linesman, Owl,
Appellations,The Decision, Domestic Emergencies or Winging It) because I heard 
Anthony read Snowflake at the launch and it got under my skin. 

http://puncherandwattmann.com/books/book/signal-flare