Susan Wicks
Small Women at Mont Orgueil Castle
We came here on a boat,
unloaded at your stone wharf
like fine wine in a crate.
You envy our small finds,
our rolling sailors’ walk,
our perfectly proportioned hands.
We see what a child sees –
moss, the undersides of rocks.
We take the stairs crabwise.
Look at the scene we make
in a doorway, this whole empty arch
above us, a half-man of dark.
Up there they’ve laid out herbs
on a chin-high table;
here iris lift off like birds.
unloaded at your stone wharf
like fine wine in a crate.
You envy our small finds,
our rolling sailors’ walk,
our perfectly proportioned hands.
We see what a child sees –
moss, the undersides of rocks.
We take the stairs crabwise.
Look at the scene we make
in a doorway, this whole empty arch
above us, a half-man of dark.
Up there they’ve laid out herbs
on a chin-high table;
here iris lift off like birds.
Susan Wicks’ most recent collection, Night Toad: New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe 2003), was a PBS Recommendation. She is Director of the Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Kent.
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