John Sewell
Unlucky Star
What did the redwing bring that morning?
Unlucky star, arriving maimed
on the first north winds of winter,
both legs broken, back half-paralysed,
so when you saw it on the lawn
it tried to row itself to safety
with its wings. Do something, you cried.
Zee-up, zee-up: its call half-hearted
as I lifted it, its tawny throat
the inner glow of chestnut leaves
at leaf-fall, underwings ruddy as beech
and the bead-eye in its eye-stripe
watching. What went wrong on that journey
to here? Do something. It can’t survive.
The pond. My hand went numb
holding it under so long, but there
was no struggle, no fight for life.
Its drenched head hardly moved
became as slight as the skull beneath,
as matt and dull as the cloth you wrapped it in.
Unlucky star, that changed the whole sky overnight.
We sleep apart now, rarely touch.
If I had some disease you’d be
more loving; or had sufficient love
to make your loving more worthwhile.
The house is bare of happiness or light.
What’s stopping us? We have
each other’s blessing. Fly!
Page(s) 53
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