Hugh Waterhouse
City Of Light And Laundry
Mr Lincoln is a frightened man,
his hands shiver beneath a few centimes.
He mumbles, asks if I speak English.
The coins click in his palm,
but Mr Lincoln fails to find his change.
Mr Lincoln cannot read the signs.
By chance he buys from the machine
a token to wash six kilograms of New York shirts.
‘Gee this is small’ Mrs Lincoln says,
her head inside the drum.
They are here for the tennis,
have come halfway across the city in a cab
to purge their clothes of the Open’s orange dust.
I feed the dryer & go out for air.
Rue de la Lutece curves behind the amphitheatre,
a bloody arena of the state.
In shadows, men smoke and read l’Equipe,
kids kick a ball across the gravel,
socks on lines across the balconies of tenements
drip into Imperial seats.
Next week’s tournament is Tokyo.
We fold our clothes & walk to the Hotel
to watch the semi-finals on TV.
Later in the Roman baths
we look at many broken statues
& read their labels, neatly typed.
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