Michael Henry
Pedant in the Kitchen
“Psychology is in its infancy as a science”
Tall coffee pot and milk jug
with a wicked sense of spillage.
The day’s folded Times to be cut open
with a paper knife.
Tiny marmalade spoon and butter-knife
with Cutler’s name in cursive script.
An unseen ten commandments:
Plate, cup and saucer
in matching family livery.
A boiled egg, oval,
to be taken as it is.
No toast seeds in the butter.
No stray peels of marmalade.
Triangles of toast
from a mathematics text-book
on a rectangular silver rack.
They breathe on eggshells,
never break the bread of friendship
and rarely break the silence.
Michael Henry studied Modern Languages. He lives in Cheltenham and has published five collections, four with Enitharmon Press, the latest, After the Dancing Dogs, came out in 2008.
Page(s) 22
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