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Freud’s Brief(c)ase by Jennifer Harrison

3rd Prize Winner of the OSP Poetry Competition

Fat brown leather found poem

carryall behind glass at Berggasse 19 in Vienna –

47 years of work – his throat already rotting

as he smokes another cigar after dinner –


the handle almost worn through

(brass tackle for a tiny cathectic key) –

Islamic carpets – ebony carved masks –

scarlet velvet tapestries


covering all the comfy chairs

and a white-bearded ghost seated at the head

of the missing couch – books – papers – archival jot –

letters – a bevel-edged mirror

and a concealed door

through which analysands might leave discretely –

four sisters sent to concentration camps –

murdered – the house a museum since 1971 –


I once had a shrink mentor called Alex

who looked exactly like him

like somebody disappearing down the annexed

emergency staircase of trauma’s secret dreams –


fat brown leather found poem

carryall at Berggasse 19 – a Viennese genteel district –

47 years of work – throat already rotting

as he smokes another fat brown cigar


minding the dreams of Wolfman –

Anna echoing through framed and painted rooms –

restored interpretive clues –

the handle almost worn through


(brass tackle for a tiny tiny lost key) –

fat brown leather found poem –

born in 1856 in Moravia – living there until age 3 –

historical ground floor – mezzanine curtains


floating in the afternoon summer breeze –

Anna picked up by the Gestapo in 1938 –

pack up – hurry – escape – horror . . .

pince nez spectacles in a worn-out case –


Islamic carpets – elaborate cabinets –

crimson covering all the uncomfortable chairs –

a bearded ghost at the head of a missing couch –

books – papers – archival jot – letters – a mirror


near the window – a concealed door

through which analysands might leave –

discretely four sisters sent to concentration camps –

murdered – the house a museum since 1971 –


artefacts – mpingo African faces –

(I once had a shrink mentor called Alex

who looked exactly like his carryall) – architectural redo –

a frightened child disappearing down the annexed


emergency EXIT hush peace –

fat brown leather found poem bag of tricks

the kitchen sink and where the couch once was (now in London)

a deliberately empty space

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