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Written after seeing Simon O’Connor in Beckett’s Company, as part of the Dunedin Arts Festival. A pastiche, certainly, but the rhythms were infectious, and this seemed the best way to get them out of my head.

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Shadows dissolve at the edges first. Begin there. With dissolution, fraying. The centre holds longest, though what constitutes this centre shifts. Yesterday it was the silhouette against the kitchen wall. Today the particular angle of darkness beneath the lamp. Tomorrow perhaps nothing but the sensation of absence.

Sitting at the table counting shadows. Eleven visible to the naked eye. More surely hidden in corners. In crevices. Residue of morning. Of presence. Evidence someone moved here and then moved elsewhere. What precision in such counting. What purpose. The morning stretches into afternoon while rain taps.

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