Character: Estina Mavet
Book: Faces in the Water
Author: Janet Frame
26 writer: Jane Berney (Aotearoa, New Zealand)
(Intro)
Estina Mavet is thinly disguised tortured literary genius Janet Frame who was orphaned by her imagined madness, estranged from reality, isolated in her other worlds.
(Sestude)
Freeze. Still as the heron fixed on a frog
Gather afternoon shadows about you
Ignore sun’s blinking dance
Wrap yourself in tired flannel sheets
burrow into winter cupboards
Make no sound.
Squeeze close blazing eyes
when Nurse bustles past
Hold onto your breath – keep it safe inside
Where hope nestles like a bird
beside watermarked memories,
and the litmus
of madness
steeps.