Good casual jacket
The good casual jacket never goes inside
the wardrobe but hangs from one of its doors.
The wardrobe exudes old dresses, shirts, suits, none kept
for old time’s sake – that’s not like us – but kept.
Nothing here is like us; these are the props
of our public lives, this room the backstage
in which the worst may come to the worst.
Between us, we can still put on a show.
We are at our best now, not at weddings
(where she still dances, and I still shed the tears),
nor at christenings (where we both grow cold
praising hats and children), nor at burials
(where we’re still the most uneasy mourners),
but here on the housing estate, come summer,
when she puts on her good casual jacket,
and I my lightest raincoat, and we walk out
together, and the children of the estate
are reassured by the measure of our
leisurely step, and their fathers and mothers
are reassured by our conversation, of which
they can only hear the sound, the murmur.
Page(s) 19
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