Paperclips

lie unobserved for eons in dormant drawers
aggregating into metallic daisy chains.

surreptitious cleaners of earwax
and fingernails

cursive O clones in exile from
the family Alphabet

keeping poems together long enough for the submission
to be passed over never-to-be-returned.

unbespoked to be poked into computers
by the technoclueless

emergency eject tools
for the CD

lockpickers/ simcard removers/
pre-digital pdf attachers

diasporas of whole packets from office stationery
cupboards to dark domestic drawers

languishing unused but for income tax forms
and bundles of applications to The Bank.

gliding on and off more subtly
than the body-piercing staple

more filable than the bulldog clip
they sit there waiting to be uncoiled

a steel trap of overlapping tongues
binding the disparate into one

never wear out yet live
uneventful dread-filled lives

awaiting the day they fall
into distracted idle hands,

their undoing.


(first published in Poets’ Corner (Adelaide Independent/ InDaily)
18/06/14
http://indaily.com.au/arts-...