Kitchen Work

To give a dull day meaning
I set radishes draining,
upright on a chopping board,
unnatural and absurd
as their extravagant dew
from the supermarket’s spray.

Each balanced on its lopped end,
they formed a portly, red band
of voiceless vegetables
speaking to human troubles
that stood like ugly heirlooms
in my waking mind and dreams.

I left the counter tableau
and bore my burdens away
on small, everyday errands
to stores, and sensible friends
who’d straighten me out at once,
if I gave them half a chance.

But secrets of the kitchen
told my tongue not to begin:
meaning might brighten the day
when the radishes were dry,
and my heirlooms disappear
in silent, eloquent air.

Things Unsaid is the author’s own choice of poems from a writing career that spans nearly half a century. It draws on seven published collections and includes many uncollected and new poems. Tony Connor–s poems – often, as he terms it, quasi-autobiographical – combine memory, experience and imagination with firm craftsmanship. The results are remarkable for their precision, their wry humour and broad human sympathies.