Robert Etty
Preparing for SATs
Two rows back, Diane is lost in
Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet.
She’s reaching out to Leonard Whiting,
fingertip to fingertip across
the balcony. She is a light that breaks,
Year Nine’s bright angel in a blue
and yellow tie, the likeliest in all
the school to shine at Level Eight.
When Romeo’s swinging from the branch
she bites her lower lip. She dips
her lashes at his forwardness, for
there can be no satisfaction yet.
She leans her cheek upon her hand
and smiles when no one else does,
flitting through Verona to escape
the traps the grownups set.
And one row further, Mark
(that tassel-gentle) dreams and gazes
at Diane and, aching, wishes
he might be a glove.
Page(s) 32
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