Helen Heslop
Sundays
We visit both homes. Captives
in the first call out for help to stand
or ask what happened to the daffs
or will we take him to the match
or have we seen her father’s watch
or would we like…..
Smiling agreement when one less-lost
informs us “You don’t live here,”
touch wood, not yet,
we find mother in her alcove next to Sadie
who pleats, unpleats a rug.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud”
Ann delivers like she’s still in class
undeterred by Ted’s enraged “Shut up, shut up.”
At Home Two there’s incontinent peace.
Felled trees disguised as patients lie on beds,
eyes shut, teeth adrift except for Kate,
chair rigid, who asks us to bury her rabbit.
We agree we hope to die from something quick,
(but not yet, God)
as we head home to purring Mozart,
alcoholic blitz.
Page(s) 36
magazine list
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- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
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- Erbacce
- Fabric
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- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- Iota
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- Lamport Court
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- Magma
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- Matter
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- North, The
- Oasis
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- Orbis
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- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
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- Poetry London (1951)
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Private Tutor
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- Quarto
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- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
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- Shearsman
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- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
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- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The