Heels
Despite the Ravel shoes with cuban heels,
not quite old lady but low enough
for me to glide into the Ritz
without my ivory cane,
will my great great nephew see through me,
sniffing out those years in Italy and France,
naming the count who hurled my satin pumps
into the Grand Canal?
Ten men ran to fish them out, laying bets,
which one would sink, which reach
the altar at St. Mark’s,
a wild, wild night.
After that, a new pair arrived each day,
the softest leather,
skin of does, skin of calves.
Then what about that red suede pair
with grosgrain straps,
by Ferragamo I think,
which found their way to me
from the wardrobe of an undiplomatic wife.
She caused my exile.
But at least my great great nephew cannot know
about a boy with diamond cuffs, who hid
my handmade lizard shoes
under a counterpane, in Neuilly, refusing
to give them back, unless …
He was my first.
Rain was glistening like frost,
our only curtain
Page(s) 47
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
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- 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