The Friday Poem: Amortisation, by Kate Camp
(Photo: Getty Images)
A new poem by Kate Camp.
Amortisation
Inside the pantry
on the year planner
with a pen
tied by a piece of string
I mark the times we are kept at home
like I kept the newspaper from nine eleven
and when they found John Barlow guilty
though none of us care about that anymore –
most of the time we are wrong
about what will matter.
I carry around the word
amortisation
the paying back of loans
from a root meaning to harm or rub out
and I think about
spending time
the origin of calendar
a book of accounts.
A single thread of spider web
in the sun
like a crack in the world’s glass
silver then invisible
and a tiny silvered insect
making senseless patterns in its flight.
The Friday Poem is edited by Chris Tse. Submissions are welcome and will be open until 31 July 2022. Please send up to three poems in a Word or PDF document to chris@christse.co.nz.
Kate Camp
Kate Camp is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently How To Be Happy Though Human: New and Selected poems published by Victoria University Press in New Zealand and House of Anansi Press in Canada. Her memoir, You Probably Think This Song Is About You, will be published by Te Herenga Waka University Press in July 2022.
