Forgive the figure curled like a question mark in the corner
no one speaks his language

He tried to read a newspaper and failed, print swimming
like tadpoles in a jar

At night he speaks to Napoléon of empires and dying horses
in the day-room he recalls his wife

She comes as ghosted as a footballer’s memoir, her face a jigsaw
puzzle he can’t resolve

In Occupational Therapy he’s made a basket, a crazy weave
to hold his ashes; he doodles poems

On toilet paper when no one’s around, the paper splits
words sliced and snowing on the pissy tiles.

The post The Origin of Poetry appeared first on The Spectator.