Teresa Morgan
Exiles
Between besoms of hazel, wriggling
catkins, ragged-hatching thorn
surprised at nursery - awkward -
as if at woman’s work
the gardener paused.
Wedged a forked arm from neck to knee,
a tired tree propped in its fall,
and stared at me.
I did not move. The drain between
fermented its fen brew of beer and weeds
and over grew a single span of silence.
I knew how
his tongue would bloom from thorny teeth,
skin be pale as straits under low tide,
eyes be Menai-blue
as mine. As hundreds from the same
salty Welsh seed bed.
Then he turned
his flower of flesh, knocking black soil
from contemptuous feet. Exposed
our common root,
a long umbilicus of toil, to tie
to my adventuring poems like a lead.
Knowing I would not be back, he bridged
the waters of our exile with his dream.
catkins, ragged-hatching thorn
surprised at nursery - awkward -
as if at woman’s work
the gardener paused.
Wedged a forked arm from neck to knee,
a tired tree propped in its fall,
and stared at me.
I did not move. The drain between
fermented its fen brew of beer and weeds
and over grew a single span of silence.
I knew how
his tongue would bloom from thorny teeth,
skin be pale as straits under low tide,
eyes be Menai-blue
as mine. As hundreds from the same
salty Welsh seed bed.
Then he turned
his flower of flesh, knocking black soil
from contemptuous feet. Exposed
our common root,
a long umbilicus of toil, to tie
to my adventuring poems like a lead.
Knowing I would not be back, he bridged
the waters of our exile with his dream.
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