‘My Shrink’s Window’

lacks trees.
And branches, which can never be placated
when they strain forward
to rap knuckles.

Her branchless window
negates the passing of time.
What is old
is as old as the rising of the sap.

Branches fork in endless possibilities
making bids for freedom
yet are inescapably attached,
as though redemption lies in following them back.

If she could but walk a few streets
to Horton Park, then glance up,
she might see how branches splinter,
alleviate the sky.

 

COMMENT

Katie Griffiths is a poet, novelist, and singer in the band A Woman in Goggles.  She has had poems published in Ambit, and her poem My Shrink Confirms My Suspicion was long-listed in this year’s Poetry Society’s national poetry competition. Her collection, My Shrink is Pregnant, was joint runner-up in the 2014 Poetry School / Pighog Poetry Pamphlet Competition.

My Shrink’s Window, is part of a sequence that details a notional six-month period between a client and her ever-noticeably pregnant psychiatrist.