The Tall Man
So tall that he must fold
the upper half of his body
to fit the contours of the carriage.
He stoops there, a distorted
question mark, a tube traveller.
*
He’ll have to be translated
inch by inch, all seven foot of him.
If he were a statue he’d be carved
out of bubinga wood,
chisel marks left behind,
and painted in diluted colours.
He can’t afford to be in fashion:
he slides off the edge of all size charts.
You’d expect his trousers to be too short
but they ripple over his shoes.
*
The tall man moves
with long slow spider strides
down the platform, oblivious
to the mad birds of papers and wrappings
which flap against the walls.
He’s never been a hero.
He won’t rescue me or scoop me up
in his arms, and a gust of wind
would blow that stick figure
down the escalator.
*
I rewind him to a tall boy
arranging himself behind a child’s desk,
a giraffe on the football field,
all legs and no tactics
then he’s a baby so long
that visitors insist on measuring him,
and the white layettes knitted
by his grandmothers are redundant.
*
I would be happy to wake up
to his boat feet protruding
from the end of my bed.
My life is small
but I will make room for him.
*
When he speaks to me for the first time
I’ll have to crick my neck and lift my face.
He treats language as an endangered species
and his conversation, when it happens,
is lean, to be spread thinly.
The tall man steps into silence
and you or I step into our favourite café.
*
It’s inevitable that one day he’ll tread
on one of the little people below him.
A woman with mulberry toenails hisses
up at him, voice spiralling like a snake.
The tall man recoils,
an uncertain smile in my direction.
Tomorrow I will tuck myself
just inside the door of our carriage,
plant my size three feet and wait.
Page(s) 12-13
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