Even when you were going
there was always something between us: your car
as we said goodbye, a train door interfering
at Exeter Station, the distance to Durham, clothes,
marriages, what would happen if. It never felt right.
Your mother said it went well. But they got it wrong:
the brothers-in-law arriving limousined, mafia-like,
the priest going on about your being a good wife,
a good mother to your two year old son. Of course
some of it was right. The priest knew: he'd met you
twice at the hospital, once for the Last Rites.
And the organist played The Day Thou Gavest
to Love Divine. We tried to fit words to tune.
It didn't work. We filed out to Elgar's Wand of Youth,
no Mahler. I couldn't face the flowers. In the end
she just stopped breathing your mother said.
You shampooed your hair twice for chemo-therapy,
searched feverishly for Johnson's Baby Powder
and Lip Salve (Original) in your bedside locker.
No, Johnson's you cried at The League of Friends.
You wanted batteries for your Walkman, got grapes.
Only days before, you had lapsed into Catholicism
and a morphine smile; your make-up turned yellow.
You wanted to cuddle Tom; he just jumped on your bed.
Earlier you pulled my hand across the Infirmary sheet,
your night-dress hinting at a breast that wasn't there.
I'm sorry, I wish I'd seen more of you you said.
You asked me to rub your back. Then your husband came
turned out in grey. And my wife bore much-loved melon.
Before that, I had sent a card a day, tapes of Schubert,
Bach, A Child's Christmas in Wales. 'If only', I wrote.
'If only. I just want you to be well.' But you knew.
The past was furtive, phonecalls when partners were out
but now it was all right to hold your hand and remember
how we'd played at Desert Island Discs and if you died
it would have to be Mahler, the Death In Venice bit.
No, you put the phone down first. No, you, go on.
Page(s) 10-11
magazine list
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- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
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- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- 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
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- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- 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