Reader Submissions

Well-Known Corners of the People

Masked

by
Neva Kastelic

His sister stands at a window

She watches a familiar scene 

 

She’s in her seaside town. Her home

A yacht, a street emptied of people

 

Surely houses still stand nearby

their reflection reassures me

 

Where is a passer-by? 

A kid, the neighbour.  Any one?

 

1000 times familiar sights

Melt from peace into unease

 

Behind her, an empty room

bare floorboards, a painter’s easel

 

Soon her brother will enter

He will load his paintbrush blue

 

Mustachioed and masked 

He will approach her

 

He will remove one window pane

He will unhinge her familiar

 

Then step back one metre. 

Two.


(for Salvador Dali’s ‘Girl at a Window’ 1925, a print on my bedroom wall)