Cora Greenhill
Part of October's dying
On the palm of my hand at last
a small dark stigma
half the length of my thumb.
Some unspoken, unwritten, unheard of taboo
had held back my hand with the scissors:
I’d broken through.
This chunk of fibrous livery stuff
contains your face. Or not.
I have to know.
Floated in a saucer of water
your pale cowl draped around you
we see you clearly:
Half the length of my thumb.
No limbs. But infinitessimal shadows
mark your eyes.
We stare at you all day.
Three selves in one
woven together in unbounded love.
He weaves you a hand-sized casket
from sweetgrass and straw.
We fill it with rosemary and heartsease. No rue.
What shall I say of the ship she made
of rushes, and sails of white roses,
with miniature dishes of seeds, to take you away?
What of the poems that flowed
from that circle of friends
and the songs we re-wrote for ourselves?
And the cakes that were bought
and the cackling and jokes over tea
‘I’ll be mother’ I say as I pour.
Your spirit had somehow put stars in our hair.
Each May, forget-me-nots crowd your ring of stones, self-seeded,
and we have been rich in missing you for another year.
Page(s) 42
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