Hilary Tinsley
Inklings
I'm leaning on the door
and the shiny brass knob is making a dent
in the back of my head,
and I'm standing on one leg
with my other foot scratching the back of my calf
and I stare down at sock-white diamonds
cut out of red leather.
And across the room Grandma dresses someone
I haven't seen before.
I peep at dimpled white skin;
fleshy arms and thighs
and I wonder, without wondering.
I watch Grandma stretch a bra around the thick waist,
thread compliant arms through inch-wide straps,
lift drooping breasts.
I see her take an underskirt, concertina it,
ease it over lank, black hair,
raised arms, bra and navy knickers.
Then Grandma puts a plain green dress on this person,
who turns
into my Auntie Dorothy.
*
Christmas Day, and I watch Dorothy
finger all her parcels,
spread out on the cracked leather
of the brown chaise-longue behind the door,
and I know she'll take a week to open them,
and I wonder why Father Christmas
comes to a grown-up.
Page(s) 46
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