Yvonne Green
Three Poems by Yvonne Green
Taking The Bride To The Hen Night
1
You sat in the evening light, shawled in gold and cream
and white. Your hair which you try so hard to tame
with unguents, was playing around your face
like tendrils of amber. You caught the late sunshine
in your eyes, in the milk of your skin, in your curls.
Then you caught the late sunshine on your swaddling silks
and it reflected into the glow of you, which in turn
created a pointillism of radiance. Who would ever believe
that a London taxi cab could contain such a moment?
2
Last night we dressed in the silks of the orient, we rang
bells and banged cymbals and screamed into the dark.
Last night we ululated with ecstasy and we reflected
on our marriages, on our babies, on our mothers.
Last night we met like women in a harem and my mother
said she envied her friends who were widowed with a hefty
inheritance.
3
It was a night when silks flew, whirling with their wearers,
glistening with real gold threads in creamy whites.
It was a night when girls were to become women
and when women recaptured girlhood. The septuagenarians
danced like houris and showed the virgins how to please a man
and the virgins danced without understanding radiant in their
innocence.
4
It was twilight in that room, like an unlit bedroom at dusk,
spirits darting in glints of light. It was a room full of pasts
and presences, it was a room where a future was being invited,
like an honoured guest. It was a room where a future was being
ignited.
You sat in the evening light, shawled in gold and cream
and white. Your hair which you try so hard to tame
with unguents, was playing around your face
like tendrils of amber. You caught the late sunshine
in your eyes, in the milk of your skin, in your curls.
Then you caught the late sunshine on your swaddling silks
and it reflected into the glow of you, which in turn
created a pointillism of radiance. Who would ever believe
that a London taxi cab could contain such a moment?
2
Last night we dressed in the silks of the orient, we rang
bells and banged cymbals and screamed into the dark.
Last night we ululated with ecstasy and we reflected
on our marriages, on our babies, on our mothers.
Last night we met like women in a harem and my mother
said she envied her friends who were widowed with a hefty
inheritance.
3
It was a night when silks flew, whirling with their wearers,
glistening with real gold threads in creamy whites.
It was a night when girls were to become women
and when women recaptured girlhood. The septuagenarians
danced like houris and showed the virgins how to please a man
and the virgins danced without understanding radiant in their
innocence.
4
It was twilight in that room, like an unlit bedroom at dusk,
spirits darting in glints of light. It was a room full of pasts
and presences, it was a room where a future was being invited,
like an honoured guest. It was a room where a future was being
ignited.
Page(s) 55
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