Wayne Burrows
Interlude
It is dark. The city, like moonlight on water
or stars taking puddles to infinite depth
and back through time, is sparkling,
veined with the boughs of trees, squared
in the window of an unlit room
at five a.m.You are veiled in smoke
and cannot sleep, humidity weighting a sheet
round your limbs; are pacing,
unsettled, through half-light, birds,
a milk van wheezing up a one-in-six
like an emphysemiac with a breakfast tray.
It is the anniversary of our second year
in these rooms we fill, pay dearly for,
that seem no longer enough to contain
a desire for space that thrives like bindweed
round bookshelves, clothes. You slump,
draw deep on Silk Cut, glare. Say nothing,
knowing nothing we control ourselves
can force through change. It will soon be light.
Till then, I'll hold you, my arm round
your waist, my mind on the rise and fall
of your voice as you read The Garden Of Paradise
aloud. Moral? No moral. It ends with death.
Page(s) 29
magazine list
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- Ambit
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
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- Lamport Court
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- Obsessed with pipework
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- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
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- Poetry London (1951)
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
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- Staple
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