Steve Venright

REFLECTION OF A HOLE

I once saw the reflection
of a hole. So young was I then,
so resolute in my
doleful glimmering.
The grace of this lifetime
is that I have grown more
frivolous with age, have
seen all my closets repainted
a dozen times or more
by elderly boys and girls
who come unbidden
at any hour of the day,
singly or in pairs (at least once
as a trio), without my consent,
in colours I neither chose
nor knew existed.

I once saw
the reflection of a hole —
though it may have been
the shadow of a coffee spoon,
teased to breaking by
a prankster kettle
whose mirrorous convexity
caught my child-gaze
and met it unfazed,
stretching a world I
barely knew all out
of shape—like a
magician whose only
so-called trick is to
punch you in the face.
And yet, I’m pretty sure
that somewhere
there was a hole.


Steve Venright’s books include Straunge Wunder (Tortoiseshell & Black, 1996), Spiral Agitator (Coach House Books, 2000) and Floors of Enduring Beauty (Mansfield Press, 2007). Through his Torpor Vigil Industries record label, he has released such CDs as The Tubular West by Samuel Andreyev and The Further Somniloquies of Dion McGregor: More Outrageous Recordings of the World’s Most Renowned Sleeptalker. Steve was born in Sarnia, Canada in 1961. At 20, he crossed the plains of Southwestern Ontario, and has resided in Toronto ever since. Visit him at www.venright.com and www.torporvigil.com.