Raymond's Thumb
A blade edge deeper would have severed it,
but Raymond’s right thumb’s almost healed up now.
He was trimming the Shaws’ leylandii the day
Adele drove up with both the kids and said
she’d need to stay a week or two, was that
all right? Phil’s digging out the footings for
his wall and thankful that it hasn’t rained,
a fact which causes arguments about
how good this summer’s been. Across the field,
quiet, bearded Martin keeps his curtains drawn.
His sister says he’s troubled in his sleep
again and won’t throw out those bottles
of queer liquids in his loft, or all
his taped-up Dolcis shoeboxes. She’s seen
the painkillers and sleeping tablets lined
along his mantelpiece. One night he walked to
Theddlethorpe and back and he lifts the roof off
playing LPs of hymns. But then, as Raymond’s mother
said, somebody’s always doing something.
Page(s) 41
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