Frances Sackett
The Suburbs
Between each impulse
Of switching on and off the lights
He would regard the way
The furniture delved deeper into the walls,
The way the lithograph of a nude
Shielded her nakedness behind glass
And only the moonlight throbbed
In the curtain folds.
The garden startled him
As he watched leaf shadows
Dance in the bole of the tree.
He switched on the outer light—
Floodlit the garden, until the sycamore
Wound its long arm to impossible
Heights in the sky—
Silvery—luminous—silently manic.
He hid in the corner to watch
Wanting to flick on a switch—
Make the dark room cosy,
The garden blind.
But the room had beckoned the moon,
Its procession of ghosts,
That slipped endlessly in through the glass,
Lined up on the parquet floor.
Of switching on and off the lights
He would regard the way
The furniture delved deeper into the walls,
The way the lithograph of a nude
Shielded her nakedness behind glass
And only the moonlight throbbed
In the curtain folds.
The garden startled him
As he watched leaf shadows
Dance in the bole of the tree.
He switched on the outer light—
Floodlit the garden, until the sycamore
Wound its long arm to impossible
Heights in the sky—
Silvery—luminous—silently manic.
He hid in the corner to watch
Wanting to flick on a switch—
Make the dark room cosy,
The garden blind.
But the room had beckoned the moon,
Its procession of ghosts,
That slipped endlessly in through the glass,
Lined up on the parquet floor.
Frances Sackett’s first full collection, The Hand Glass, is published by Seren. Her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies, most recently Welsh Women’s Poetry 1460–2001 (Honno Classics).
Page(s) 60
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