Elizabeth Barrett
Midsummer
It is not cups of tea wreathed in steam
or the gift of child-free time to bathe, I need.
Not hedges trimmed or picture nails hammered in
straight and true by you; your tyre checks
on my car don’t change my view.
No, only the purple herb will do—
the one with bruised petals, wounded by love
and lying idle. You must fetch that flower—
travel the earth’s girdle to bring back the purple,
then gather four fairies for luck, select a wood.
Choose the night when a bone-cold moon
casts watery light. Steal upon me while I sleep
and hex me please—squeeze the purple juice
into my eyes so things look new. Enchant my vision;
make me wake up different, loving you.
Elizabeth Barrett’s first collection is Walking on Tiptoe
(Staple First Editions, 1998). In 2000 she received an Arts Council of England Writer’s Award and a Royal Society of Authors Award to support the completion of her second collection, The Bat Detector. She lives in Sheffield.
(Staple First Editions, 1998). In 2000 she received an Arts Council of England Writer’s Award and a Royal Society of Authors Award to support the completion of her second collection, The Bat Detector. She lives in Sheffield.
Page(s) 44
magazine list
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- Chroma
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- Lamport Court
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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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- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
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- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
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- 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