Jane Holland
Umbra is a shadow
in the dry wrack of the house, leaning
listless under the crooked arch
of the stairway, listening for weather.
Her blood plummets.
Her scalp drags.
Her fingers stiffen, pointing south.
The dark hole of her mouth rolls shut,
an oubliette. Where is the line,
the arrow-head, the fierce unlocking magnet gone?
His absence hurts her,
takes away all purpose like the cracked vase
on the table, draining its blue veins
to a dark puddle of light on the hall floor.
What could she do, where go,
how to atone, retrieve the scattered atoms of her self?
The dark recedes.
The windows beat their pulsing heads
against the sun.
His body hangs against the glass.
She hears his mute key speak into the lock,
oracular, indelible.
The house shifts like mercury
beneath the pressing tide.
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