Title: Janet Frame’s House

Author: C.K. Stead

In: Sport 17: Spring 1996

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, November 1996, Wellington

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Verse Literature

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Sport 17: Spring 1996

Janet Frame's House

page 137

Janet Frame's House

There's a pool table
she plans to exchange
for a desk
of the same size.

At the back are pines
and a tidal creek
with mangroves
and crabs.

Downstream
from the racecourse
a traffic bridge
rushes and whispers.

Needled grass
under the pines
remembers
summer picnics.

At full tide she says
if she had a dinghy
she could row across
for the shopping.

Indoors again
I take down a cue
from its wall-clip
and pot the black.

I too would like
such a vast desk
but secretly wish
she would keep the table.