Cutting Loose
Eighteen this week
and out to Africa
for six months,
a rite of passage
before he can even manage
life in the family home
without mislaying things
or getting into trouble.
Testing the boundaries
has led to fighting
outside pubs,
drink-driving, casual
sex and cannabis,
so any phone call
could bring
news of disaster.
Now he is on his way,
head shaven for diving,
more Buddhist novice
than hard man,
and I cannot visit
his patch of wood
or think to fish
his favourite stream.
Everywhere are reminders,
we are skirting the gear,
guns and rods, and the thought
of his best mate,
sharing a birthday
but two years ahead,
killed within a week
of going up to college,
the buttress in Glen Cova
an extra snatched
at the end of a day,
one challenge too many.
Page(s) 24-25
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The