Briony Bax
Counting for the Thunder
I lie awake listening to the rain.
The skylight is broken and
drips fall into the bucket below.
I breathe with them,
holding in the air,
watching the trembling drop,
exhaling when it plops in the pail.
A flash outside.
The bare lemon tree illuminated.
A Polaroid second
white against black.
I pull the cotton blanket high,
counting for the thunder.
It’s close, three elephants close.
She comes quietly
small feet tiptoeing on wooden slats,
slips into my bed without a sound.
Curling - her thin body rolled -
chin, elbow and knees against me.
I stroke her yellow hair
behind the ear where she likes it.
‘Get closer,’ I say.
As her tiny sweet arms clutch,
my breasts ache with dryness
‘I want you,’ she says.
So we lie, no air between us.
And I think that these times are becoming rare.
I am a giant in Lilliput. Stumbling.
Briony Bax is a British native living in Santa Monica. She is a writer, producer and educator, and is currently working on her first novel, which is set in contemporary L.A., using the film business as its backdrop.
Page(s) 43
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