Sasha
from Half Life: poems for Chernobyl
In Belarus I’d look
with my feet. With
the hands of others.
To listen was ankle
and calf – the muscle
my eyelids lacked.
On the Fens my ears
ranged the flatness.
No whisper of trees.
A doctor took fibres
from my legs so I
could open my eyes –
Like grafting peach
to a plum branch
he told me. In London
we always walk in
weak light. I watch
an observatory open
its eyelid on space.
Now my eyes stumble
across faces. But my legs
see what pulls us
down – there is something
that drags us down
and makes us all stick
out the same way. I see
everyone walking with
eyes so open. Walking
as though the world
had never changed.
with my feet. With
the hands of others.
To listen was ankle
and calf – the muscle
my eyelids lacked.
On the Fens my ears
ranged the flatness.
No whisper of trees.
A doctor took fibres
from my legs so I
could open my eyes –
Like grafting peach
to a plum branch
he told me. In London
we always walk in
weak light. I watch
an observatory open
its eyelid on space.
Now my eyes stumble
across faces. But my legs
see what pulls us
down – there is something
that drags us down
and makes us all stick
out the same way. I see
everyone walking with
eyes so open. Walking
as though the world
had never changed.
Page(s) 73
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