Taking Shape

By Marjorie Lotfi Gill

 

At first, he sees nothing but a circle, darkness

made visible, a line that breaks and joins,

like the one condensation etches along the bottom

of his pint glass, that surfaces and remains

due to changes in time and temperature.

 

But then the form takes shape, the nose

of his grandfather emerges, his mother’s cowlick,

that old great-aunt’s mistaken scowl, still harbouring

her furies, so that he’s looking at himself, and knows why

the lines don’t meet, the exact circumference of the circle.