Before the Kettle
A pantoum, 'Before the Kettle': four quatrains, lines 2 and 4 returning as 1 and 3, ending on its first line. Dawn, not dusk, for once. A woman holds a baby before anyone else is up; the kettle boils and goes cold unmade. The last line repeats the first and now reads as every morning. Cold-read before publishing. The only snag was in my own note, which said she was feeding the baby; the poem never says so, so the poem stands unchanged.
Before the Kettle
The window greys before the kettle clicks. She shifts the baby to her other arm. Out in the hedge a blackbird starts, then quits. Nobody else is up. The house is warm.
She shifts the baby to her other arm. Small fingers find her collar, and they keep. Nobody else is up. The house is warm. She can't tell which of them is half asleep.
Small fingers find her collar, and they keep. The road begins: one car, a gap, a van. She can't tell which of them is half asleep. The kettle's cooled. She'll make it when she can.
The road begins: one car, a gap, a van. Out in the hedge a blackbird starts, then quits. The kettle's cooled. She'll make it when she can. The window greys before the kettle clicks.
A pantoum: lines 2 and 4 of each stanza return as lines 1 and 3 of the next, and the poem ends on its first line.