Sue Dymoke
Concession perpetuelle
A well kept city of ordered streets
where flowers shiver in cellophane
and visitors either shed a tear
or press shutters at each celebrity.
Here the concession is ‘perpetuelle’.
Residents never bother to move,
fear squatters or sudden eviction.
The people become their buildings.
Each little house has a door
but no bell - all callers are known,
summoned by generations past
until the line runs dry.
Then doors will break, panes smash,
tiny altars lose their vases,
varnished books of prayer,
and the leaves rush in.
Outside the day has not fully woken
and a man inscribes another name.
With deep green strokes
he writes of ‘une soeur décédée’.
She is already below
in her elegant resting place
chosen by discerning ancestors
overcrowded now forever.
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Page(s) 39-40
magazine list
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- Lamport Court
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- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
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- Shearsman
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- Staple
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- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
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