Sally Hammelev
Mrs Hamilton
Where did it begin?
It must have been with me:
I was his roots, his soil, his medium.
He shouldn’t have been born,
but how could I have known?
In the violence of his birth
he must have heard my groans,
the final sounds that closed his ears
were the smaller groans of children.
Was mine the first missed chance
to save them?
To prevent the fatal eruption
as the fault ceded to pressure,
and tremors spread across the town.
What were the signs?
Have my eyes been closed?
Somehow I condemned my own -
could I have saved the others?
The small monochrome smudges
that are the proofs of life:
I could insert his childhood face
within those rows - who could play
spot the monster then?
Did I do this?
Somehow in the making -
the cloth became warped.
But he was woven
from my dreams and fears
which have finally died with him.
Page(s) 24
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