Bio
Mary Cresswell is from Los Angeles and lives on New Zealand's Kapiti Coast. Her most recent book is 'Field Notes' - a satiric miscellany published by Makaro Press (Wellington)/ Submarine Books. For more detail, see www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writer/cresswell-mary/
Mary Cresswell
Compromise
(quatern)
Let us now speak of unfinished business
Starlight is bright and reflects on loose ends
Howl me along to the margins of madness
When the red moon sets we'll be scattered again.
Whatever you've lost, that's what you'll find
Let us now speak of unfinished business
Possible truces are permanently banned
We roll out barbed wire to mend broken fences.
The trials collapse for lack of a witness
Someone believes that nobody sinned
Let us now speak of unfinished business
No wondering how, no wondering when.
The first one we lose is the last one we find.
My cutters are rusty, dropped in the darkness
The black dog's ears lie flat in the wind
Let us now speak of unfinished business.