Leaving
We’re both smiling but the word weep
weighs me down as we accelerate, begin
to shed the suburbs. Even our drive
rivered with cracks, tugs. Groping
for a cast-iron reason to return, I think
of crucial clothing I forgot to pack:
my mock-velvet scarf steeped
in panther dusk, the cotton square,
swirled with lime and shocking pink,
which flicks away depression. When I beg,
you reverse the car but your face crumples
with misgiving. In our road danger’s ripening
among the leaves of the prunus trees
and already the abandoned house smells
of shabby animal. The filing cabinet
coughs up marbled notebooks I never dared
to write in, frail envelopes, ravelled string.
The brightness belling in the coat cupboard
reminds me of a hall where a golden birdcage,
empty of bird, stands on a red runner.
Uncertainly I peel an orange, gather books.
Within these walls I’ve incubated longings,
made rice swell fivefold in the pan, wrestled
with layers of meaning. It might be easier
to leave if I put on my harlequin dress.
But suppose the threat crouched in the wardrobe
jumps out? Better to grab the shawl
on this shelf. It could envelop a baby –
the one that cried, unsatisfied, every time
I fed him. My bundle’s ticking. Before it wails
I’ll tiptoe down the wobbly stairs.
Our waiting car is a doe spotted with sun.
Nothing’s automatic but as you ease beautifully
to first, through all the gears, I wonder:
is this keeping or could it be letting go?
weighs me down as we accelerate, begin
to shed the suburbs. Even our drive
rivered with cracks, tugs. Groping
for a cast-iron reason to return, I think
of crucial clothing I forgot to pack:
my mock-velvet scarf steeped
in panther dusk, the cotton square,
swirled with lime and shocking pink,
which flicks away depression. When I beg,
you reverse the car but your face crumples
with misgiving. In our road danger’s ripening
among the leaves of the prunus trees
and already the abandoned house smells
of shabby animal. The filing cabinet
coughs up marbled notebooks I never dared
to write in, frail envelopes, ravelled string.
The brightness belling in the coat cupboard
reminds me of a hall where a golden birdcage,
empty of bird, stands on a red runner.
Uncertainly I peel an orange, gather books.
Within these walls I’ve incubated longings,
made rice swell fivefold in the pan, wrestled
with layers of meaning. It might be easier
to leave if I put on my harlequin dress.
But suppose the threat crouched in the wardrobe
jumps out? Better to grab the shawl
on this shelf. It could envelop a baby –
the one that cried, unsatisfied, every time
I fed him. My bundle’s ticking. Before it wails
I’ll tiptoe down the wobbly stairs.
Our waiting car is a doe spotted with sun.
Nothing’s automatic but as you ease beautifully
to first, through all the gears, I wonder:
is this keeping or could it be letting go?
Myra Schneider’s most recent books are Insisting
on Yellow (Enitharmon 2000) and Writing My Way
Through Cancer (Jessica Kingsley, June 2003). Her
next collection, Multiplying the Moon, is due from
Enitharmon in 2004.
on Yellow (Enitharmon 2000) and Writing My Way
Through Cancer (Jessica Kingsley, June 2003). Her
next collection, Multiplying the Moon, is due from
Enitharmon in 2004.
Page(s) 8
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