Retta Bowen
To understand nothing finally
To understand nothing finally but the sly betrayals,
the way the body suffers indignities at rest
or responds to the lightest touch in sleep;
the way we mooch across the carpet in shoddy slippers
with a cup of tea, as though that tea might save us.
Last night I walked the tenements of every hour –
bedroom, toilet, kitchen, dammit – surprised
by the modicum of space, the frankness of fridge and door
and the cold resorts; stood unnverved in makeshift lights,
then snapped them off to a scorch of dark.
Only in glimpses can we know what we are born for;
all morning the back door stands wide in alarm
on the ease of rain that is pardoning the garden,
the wind chimes jostling for their claim on sound.
the way the body suffers indignities at rest
or responds to the lightest touch in sleep;
the way we mooch across the carpet in shoddy slippers
with a cup of tea, as though that tea might save us.
Last night I walked the tenements of every hour –
bedroom, toilet, kitchen, dammit – surprised
by the modicum of space, the frankness of fridge and door
and the cold resorts; stood unnverved in makeshift lights,
then snapped them off to a scorch of dark.
Only in glimpses can we know what we are born for;
all morning the back door stands wide in alarm
on the ease of rain that is pardoning the garden,
the wind chimes jostling for their claim on sound.
Retta Bowen studied in Leeds and Manchester and now lives in London. She was co-editor of Poem for the Day Two published by Chatto & Windus in 2003.
Page(s) 18
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