The 23rd Secret Love Poem
His goldfish associate my ecru
cardigan with food. In water, flakes
form tiny islands, beaches where
summer hula-dances into a mouth.
The mermaid I gave him lies
beside a chest of sunken treasure;
half the paint on her eyes is gone.
Plastic seaweed sways with fins.
Beyond the aquarium, the room swims
a slow motion: the unread book and
sauce stains on pages 5-9, IV bags
that shrivel like his chapped lips.
We breathe silence and, on rare
days, hold hands. My prayers
underbreath carry his name. He calls
me Sylvia, sometimes Rosemary.
In his sleep, I am the woman next door
peering behind aquamarine blinds
as he starts the car. He is only
waiting for me to blow him a kiss.
Page(s) 36
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