Xylotheque
My husband mocks the ghost who hovers near me
on walks. A ghost wouldn't climb a stile
or skirt cows so widely. And why would he edge
round barely flooded fields? Leaky shoes?
Aren't ghosts violent, my husband suggests.
No, you need a body for that, to be
as well as mean and seem, though the ghost wears
blue jeans, desert boots and says
he was bullied for being beautiful
as a teenager and loved a telephonist
from Dollis Hill at twenty. The ghost noticed me
in the doctor's surgery. I held
a child who snuffled my hand like an animal.
Dying is being born. You imprint on the person
you see last. I remember his panic.
Receptionists corralled the waiting room.
Calling him up now seems like human-stealing.
My husband mocks: You saw a death. Why
exaggerate? Maybe because, without ghosts,
we are a wooden library, books about wood
bound in wood with leaves for pages, words,
the seeds and nuts of ancient beech, birch, oak
and rowan. Latterly, I wander where
box trees curl like knots of neglected hair.
Page(s) 64
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