Grace Gauld
Meaning
The meaning was lost.
Surrounded by colour, pattern, and Shape,
she moved, touched wood, velvet, skin,
skin, she waited for meaning to return.
She saw herself in the mirror,
pressed cheek to cheek against glass,
searched for a word;
cold; cold, she said inside her head,
the word-thought struck sharply.
She looked at her other self,
the glass cold hands held out, spread flat.
She smiled and smiled back -
she smiled and smiled back.
The answer was found; the difference.
“Me and her” - “her and me”,
hands touching hands.
A bridge built from the nothing of empty
touch to the acceptance of it.
Hands; flesh, blood, bones, outlined
by type, location and function.
She liked the symmetry, the life
maps sketched by genetics -
hands; hands, she said inside her head.
Hands were good at making noise;
playing the piano, clapping and tapping,
tapping, tapping; the tapping let her know
when she disappeared,
that she was still there.
She looked at herself,
moved away from the mirror
(leaving her in there on her own), knowing
that it was coming back to meaning that hurt.
Page(s) 137
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