Curzon's foundling
‘…the English traveller who visited Athos came
across a man who had been left as a foundling on
the peninsula’
Try to imagine infinity. You can’t
put doors on it, nail walls in place.
It’s like God. It’s also like nothing.
Saying ‘nothing’ gives it substance.
I’ve never seen a woman.
Don’t ask me what that means.
Ask me what I know. Stone robes
is what I know. Byzantine gold.
And cracked skin - crimson lake,
a dab of china white, ochre, ultramarine.
Haloes are crescent moons that rise
like antlers from a ridge of bone.
I can imagine washing marble hair,
feel the blank weight of it rocking
in the sink before I buff it dry
and polish it with cloth.
In certain lights - a candle in a cup -
eyes which look heavenwards or down
will stare at me. Briefly. I don’t spend
too much time in contemplation
It does no good to spread oneself
along her arms and legs, to match
her palms with mine or cover her heart
with my own soft beating feathers.
That’s how I feel. Like a bird
blown off course, clinging to air.
So small and white and fragile,
she could snap my bones.
across a man who had been left as a foundling on
the peninsula’
Try to imagine infinity. You can’t
put doors on it, nail walls in place.
It’s like God. It’s also like nothing.
Saying ‘nothing’ gives it substance.
I’ve never seen a woman.
Don’t ask me what that means.
Ask me what I know. Stone robes
is what I know. Byzantine gold.
And cracked skin - crimson lake,
a dab of china white, ochre, ultramarine.
Haloes are crescent moons that rise
like antlers from a ridge of bone.
I can imagine washing marble hair,
feel the blank weight of it rocking
in the sink before I buff it dry
and polish it with cloth.
In certain lights - a candle in a cup -
eyes which look heavenwards or down
will stare at me. Briefly. I don’t spend
too much time in contemplation
It does no good to spread oneself
along her arms and legs, to match
her palms with mine or cover her heart
with my own soft beating feathers.
That’s how I feel. Like a bird
blown off course, clinging to air.
So small and white and fragile,
she could snap my bones.
Pat Winslow lives in Oxford. Her most recent collection is The Girl in the Iron Lung (Crocus 2003).
Page(s) 58-59
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