Vivienne Plumb
Bird
The attendant at the Plečnik
exhibition stares at my skirt,
then she runs her eyes like
punched rivets into my body.
I know I look the same,
but different.
They all watch me
when I wash my hands
at the sink in the ladies’ toilets.
What can I say?
I am like a bird with no nest.
And I need ten thousand eyes in my own head,
as I know she overcharged me at the market.
Vivienne Plumb writes poetry, fiction and drama. Her new collection of poetry entitled, ‘crumple’, will be launched in November, 2010, by Seraph Press, Wellington, New Zealand. She is presently completing a doctorate of creative arts in Sydney, Australia.
Plumb says: “Josef Plečnik was a Slovenian architect who lived in Prague and Vienna. The capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana, features many excellent examples of his work. The poem was written while I was living for a couple of months in Kraków in Poland. I liked to watch the Polish pigeons who lived on a window ledge (Dorita and Darek) who had eyes the colour of a hard nugget of Baltic amber. I found myself often thinking about birds.”