Mimi Khalvati
Signal 
Mimi Khalvati reading Signal 
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You’d think that in all this open space,
nothing but fields for miles around
and some cows and trees, you’d get a signal.
Only behind the goosehouse, the roses,
in one of those patches of grass that make
no sense, too small to cross or lie on,
with a sheltering wall at your back, beanrow
on your left, on a triangle of grass
doing nothing and going nowhere,
can you stand and even then, only
with somebody else behind you, wind
blowing their hair and their own mobile
fisted against the rain, with two
or three others besides to bulwark you
– you a child stripping down on a beach,
they a towel or windbreak – do you stand
a hope in heaven or hell of reaching
somebody out there sometime, somewhere.
nothing but fields for miles around
and some cows and trees, you’d get a signal.
Only behind the goosehouse, the roses,
in one of those patches of grass that make
no sense, too small to cross or lie on,
with a sheltering wall at your back, beanrow
on your left, on a triangle of grass
doing nothing and going nowhere,
can you stand and even then, only
with somebody else behind you, wind
blowing their hair and their own mobile
fisted against the rain, with two
or three others besides to bulwark you
– you a child stripping down on a beach,
they a towel or windbreak – do you stand
a hope in heaven or hell of reaching
somebody out there sometime, somewhere.
Mimi Khalvati has published five collections with Carcanet Press including her Selected Poems in 2000 and, most recently, The Chine. She is the founder of The Poetry School and lives in London.
Page(s) 58
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