Secrets of the Widow
I never created on the page;
my sphere was blood, wordless.
His death, his disappearance
feeds the fame, my house-bones husband.
I am now the poet’s widow,
all his poems my possession,
my permission always necessary
unlike it ever was in life.
I guard the canon of his works
like I guarded the canon of his socks.
Now I own the dry and brittle papers-
here come the editors and researchers,
the future PhDs,
I can tell them anything I want,
there is no proof. The interviews are long.
I am guardian of the truth.
Our spit intermingled in kisses,
saliva’s own illiteracy of mingled bodies.
Now I own those yellow, brittle papers
that try to document our nights.
I guard the canon of his works
debating whether to light the winter fire
with these scattered pages, fan the flame
of his patchy testimony.
Page(s) 10
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