Liane Strauss
The Yellow Dress
Inevitable city, coming back to you, like dreaming –
it all seems real,
I take for granted that it's half invented,
the headlong wind that brings on restlessness,
the bridge that vanishes halfway across the river.
Memories sleep and wake,
in between them I am drifting.
I know it's not that other summer’s evening.
I recognize the past, it’s nearer and more vivid,
the yellow dress thrashing on the line
in the convent dormitory courtyard,
my Romanian roommate delirious with fever,
the day I skipped class
like there was nothing to prevent me
and we drove to the Camargue
to take in its “unique and savage landscape”
according to you and your Let’s Go.
The tall glasses of pastis,
the high late light, the chairs.
I slipped past but I took note,
you wanted to kiss me.
What followed after was unprecedented.
it all seems real,
I take for granted that it's half invented,
the headlong wind that brings on restlessness,
the bridge that vanishes halfway across the river.
Memories sleep and wake,
in between them I am drifting.
I know it's not that other summer’s evening.
I recognize the past, it’s nearer and more vivid,
the yellow dress thrashing on the line
in the convent dormitory courtyard,
my Romanian roommate delirious with fever,
the day I skipped class
like there was nothing to prevent me
and we drove to the Camargue
to take in its “unique and savage landscape”
according to you and your Let’s Go.
The tall glasses of pastis,
the high late light, the chairs.
I slipped past but I took note,
you wanted to kiss me.
What followed after was unprecedented.
Liane Strauss’ poems have appeared in various magazines here and in the USA. A selection of her work is included in the forthcoming anthology, The Like Of It (Baring and Rogerson 2005).
Page(s) 28
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