Beyond the room, a door: a kitchen, a garden.
A dog and a friend. A tigress, a pillow.
Out the back. They fall to dream
by a thread. I’ll leave them a while,

sound and happy. All is well. Back
to the room where the others are.
We’re waiting for a sculpted well,
a glass flute, heard book, ball

of water. Soon they arrive. I keep
my belongings hid, a shirt, a book,
a mountain, in a bleak hangar.

I don’t have much and I’m not worried.
The guests come through.
They don’t take milk.

JOSEPHINE DICKINSON has published four collections of poetry including Silence Fell (Houghton Mifflin, 2007) and collaborates with artists, musicians and writers. Active also as a visual artist and a carillonist, Josephine lives on a small hill farm in the Northern Pennines of England.