Christopher Allan
The Gift
It was all so long ago I’ve forgotten
how it started. You seemed to come
from a dream. From somewhere inside me
you eased out a hand, a shoulder, a thigh.
Trees broke through the ground, but
it was as if I’d always known leaves;
then rain gave a shine to your skin
and fruit fitted my palm with a strange
exactness.
Later, when I watched you walking away
towards the light, I knew I was hollow.
I crossed the river, climbed a hill
and saw you still drifted beyond me.
Then you turned and opened your mouth
and began to sing. It was
soon after that you stole up on me
surprising me with a gift. What could I do
but hold out my hand to take it?
There it lay, fresh and round and good.
And how sweet it tasted, though the core
was bitter and would bruise my tongue.
Since then, how many red suns have risen
over the land? How many moons
have grown and dissolved, mirroring your
cycle?
Now I am old, they dissolve
into each other. Yet my love endures,
even though you now sleep under clay.
I will not let them speak ill of you.
Long ago, what you gave me was the world.
Page(s) 17
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