Plaza de la Inquisición

Plaza de la Inquisición

Original Text
Earle Birney, Selected Poems 1940-66 (Toronto and Montreal: McClelland and Stewart, 1966): 17. PS 8503 I75A1 1966 Robarts Library
1A spider's body
2limp and hairy
3appeared at the bottom of my coffee
4The waiter being Castilian
5said passionately nothing
6And why indeed should apologies
7be made to me
8It was I who was looking in
9at the spider
10It might be years
11before I slipped and drowned
12in somebody else's cup

Notes

4] Castilian: from Castile in Spain. Back to Line
Publication Notes
Fall by Fury (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1977).
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2009
Rhyme
unrhyming
Form
Three stanzas of 3, 4, and 5 lines
Special Copyright

© the Estate of Earle Birney. This poem is protected by Canadian copyright law. RPO is grateful to Madam Justice Wailan Low, the executor of Earle Birney's literary estate, for permission to publish. Anyone wishing to reprint this poem must seek permission in advance from the Birney estate.