Coming to Light
I've taken a ruler to my naked
bronze, and he's eight inches tall,
the whole of him potentially containable
within one pudendum. His own
unmentionable, the focus
of his smouldering downward gaze,
is five millimetres long
(contrast with his big toe, six).
He wears thonged sandals, exposing
all toes, but concealing, regrettably,
both ankles. A delicate, decorative
shaft, possibly an arrow,
hangs from one shoulder, its point
embedded in a padded wristband.
He has roses in his hair, tapering
fingers, and round buttocks.
'Pretty!' the auctioneer whispers,
his lips to my ear. 'Don't let him
go!' Which is why I'm giving him
a rub, standing him up,
prominent, here in my hall -
while I start to redefine Grandma,
who's been hiding him all these years
at the back of her bedside drawer
behind embroidered lavender bags
and her mother's King James Bible.
Page(s) 39
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