A Novel Construction

she stares at the buckets of words for several minutes
then picks one – the one that used to hold the paint for the kitchen wall
and still has the colour splashed on the rim – and upends it.
Words tumble out in a great clattering, spattering, spilling over the table
and small, rounds words like 'on' and 'ere' skitter across the pine
fall on the red clay quarry tiles and slide under the fridge'
She takes a handful and arranges them on a fresh sheet of paper:
"Margaret Daly was surprised by the amount of blood..."
and takes a second handful and a third; interlocking phrases
with prepositions and conclusions, the prose climbing
higher and higher, layer after layer like a Lego tower.

This is how she constructs a novel, with each part dependant
on the one beneath; page after page climbing to the roof.