The Friday Poem on 10/05/2024
If you know Wuthering Heights, you can’t read this sonnet without recalling Mr Lockwood reaching through glass to silence a rattling branch, only to meet the icy hand of Catherine Linton, “a waif for twenty years”. But here it’s not just a hand; it’s a whole girl, other children behind her. What can they want? Is it a dream? And why does the speaker find this tapping “oddly soothing”? He ignores it (how?) and goes back to sleep, but there’s a difference. Although the children weren’t invited in, there are holes in the glass. Things have changed.
One night
I was woken by a tapping on the window.
When I opened the curtain, I saw a small girl
with her palms on the glass, other children
huddled behind her. To be friendly, I placed
my fingertips on the inside of the pane
where hers were and tapped back. I thought
of inviting them in, but it was far too late
so after a few moments I closed the curtain
and returned to bed. The tapping grew louder,
more insistent, but I found it oddly soothing
and was soon asleep again. At first light
the visitors were gone, but there were holes
in the glass the size of a child’s fingertips
and my room was much colder.
