The Voyage Out (erasure of Virginia Woolf)

Jordan Ferensic

Poem

going down, dusk was saluted as usual
the hours
were always difficult (to kill).

                arm chairs in the middle of the hall,
        with coffee cups
        beside them.

the evening was unusually dull -
the men
their silence
        (the silence
        each beast holds raw
        in its paws).

stimulated by this comparison
    canary birds,
            swine,
                loathsome reptiles
        (curled round the half-decayed bodies of sheep).

The intermittent sounds were just -
    the bones
        (fixed so ingeniously).