The Hartford Accident and Indemnity Policy

(On the Centenary of ‘Harmonium’ by Wallace Stevens)

To wear a four-piece suit.
To rest uncalloused hands on a desk of polished deal.
Never to overwrite in favour of underwriting
so that a farmer may sleep unfurrowed
by prairie lightning, or twisters or a blight from God
To strum with ink on a blue guitar.
Only fire and stormproof genius can do this.
It plants hedges against fate, not open skies,
covering the Dust Bowl mother
for her thousand and one losses,
grinding a day’s bric-a-brac into diamonds.
These are the life policies he writes to turn anxieties
into red-necked hummingbirds.
He may be lumpy, drunk and middle-aged with horns
and a mortgage.
He may crack his puffy knuckles on Hemingway’s jaw
but ice cream deserves the best Emperor it can afford.

Runner-up in The Goldsmith Prize 2023