Jacqueline Saphra
Mango 1963
As I test the fruit for ripeness,
a certain give
beneath the fingertips
the way you taught me,
suddenly I'm looking up at you.
Your perfect legs,
your tiny waist,
your broken heart.
Pausing outside the greengrocer
you shiver in the February rain
beneath a canopy
of English grey.
You will not go on pushing
this cumbersome pram
up the endless hill, however hard
I cry. You are weighing up
the absurd cost
of one small piece of Africa,
the cold storage taste of home
and working on your best smile.
a certain give
beneath the fingertips
the way you taught me,
suddenly I'm looking up at you.
Your perfect legs,
your tiny waist,
your broken heart.
Pausing outside the greengrocer
you shiver in the February rain
beneath a canopy
of English grey.
You will not go on pushing
this cumbersome pram
up the endless hill, however hard
I cry. You are weighing up
the absurd cost
of one small piece of Africa,
the cold storage taste of home
and working on your best smile.
Page(s) 28
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