" title="Brittle Star Katrina Naomi
The companion
How many summers is it together,
with your vents and doors open;
how many springs,
full of self-important shoots;
how many autumns,
dusty and home to spiders;
and how many winters,
shut, inward looking
at not very much?
Your pungence, creativity
and openness draw her in.
You’re completely transparent –
or so it seems.
Do you long for your great aunts
at Kew, Edinburgh and Belfast,
full of spectacle, colour, sprinklers?
Do you long for a white staircase?
You’re tended by just the one gardener.
The same pair of brown mottled hands,
pummelling rich black spongey earth into plastic pots;
labels, lovingly written in blue pencil;
sprigs of green firmly pushed into place.
The trains rattle at your windows,
a mini earthquake, but one you can count on.
No need for a welcome mat,
the grass is worn
a polished carpet to your door.
And here she comes,
looking briefly to the gulls,
stepping inside. For a moment,
the sun highlights her silver hairs
caught at the top right of your frame,
as she searches for the hard green gloves.
Page(s) 30-31
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