Mary MacRae
Virgin and Child 
from the studio of Roger van der Weyden
Mary MacRae reading Virgin and Child 
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With her right hand she holds the breast
between her fingers, pushing the nipple forward
and looks down, concentrated. The baby looks, too;
a blue vein throbs as the milk comes in.
And I feel again the warmth of the held child,
years past ovulation dream the vital second
when the sperm finds the egg, how they grow together
and swirl towards a safe harbour and silt to lodge in.
When I was a girl, the frost made ferns
on my window, their leaves spread over and over;
moss on a shady path was a firework star-burst.
What endlessness of variation, sand-ridges
made and unmade with every tide; all the unborn,
children and grandchildren, the womb unfulfilled.
between her fingers, pushing the nipple forward
and looks down, concentrated. The baby looks, too;
a blue vein throbs as the milk comes in.
And I feel again the warmth of the held child,
years past ovulation dream the vital second
when the sperm finds the egg, how they grow together
and swirl towards a safe harbour and silt to lodge in.
When I was a girl, the frost made ferns
on my window, their leaves spread over and over;
moss on a shady path was a firework star-burst.
What endlessness of variation, sand-ridges
made and unmade with every tide; all the unborn,
children and grandchildren, the womb unfulfilled.
Mary MacRae has published widely in magazines including PN Review, Scintilla and Magma and had poems in the second Poetry School anthology, Entering the Tapestry, from Enitharmon and Four Caves of the Heart from Second Light Publications.
Page(s) 34
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