Amanda White
Foreplay
Pillow man was a soft and happy place
that made me feel something tingly
when I wrapped tiny legs around him,
playing a new game, pressing and rolling,
not really knowing why, but keeping
him secret and dragging him out from
the dark covers if mummy came to check
on me, of course then making out he
was just a pillow under my head
and sleeping, not touching me down there.
Pebble man was not one but many
mouths on shingle beaches in summer,
when I lay down on my stomach
and found that better than sun-bathing
I could kiss you all, shamelessly,
without preferring one above another,
just something to practise on, and afterwards
all you might see was a young girl
throwing away a stone, never thinking
she had learned the art of using.
Book man lived in the dirty passages
of my grandfather's paperbacks next
to the coupons he raped from newspapers,
he was a real man who looked just like
Richard Gere and knew what to do and say
at the same time, not like the first boy man,
no better than stones, who bit me when
he kissed me and tried after clumsy
tongues to be a pillow and go down there,
making me close my eyes and pretend.
Page(s) 49
magazine list
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- 14
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- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
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- French Literary Review, The
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- Iota
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- Lamport Court
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- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
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- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
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- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- 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