Geoffrey Winch
Temple Street
This is the street she walks by day,
pass her by and you might think
urban goddess and praise her highly,
though every day there is no sun
nor rainbows in the sky; where even frost
rime settles for only shades of grey.
In her room there’s no surprise -
junked heap of clothes, easy chair,
make-up mirror, half-filled ashtray,
rough-made bed (altar for the sacrifice)
no votive candles, a forty-watt glow.
She’s a shrew who’s been tamed by life,
a temptress who never shows unease
until evening comes
when, in high stilettos and fishnet tights,
skirt hitched high above the knees
her crisis is revealed.
So it is the same street she walks at night,
temptation to the crawling godless,
hoping for the one to find her -
the one who is well-heeled,
and for his simony to go on saving her
if she can satisfy his need.
Page(s) 88
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- Chroma
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- Lamport Court
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- Modern Poetry in Translation
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- North, The
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- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
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- Poetry London (1951)
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
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- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
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- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The