Scott Anderson
Afternoon Nap
The dishes washed, and the plates stacked
Neatly in their cupboards, he scooped up a section
Of the Sunday paper and slipped into the lounge,
His belt stretched from too much cream cake.
Over the picture of a scoring hero
He dozed off, coming to at four, the house quiet,
And brightness gone from the sky. He felt weak,
Knowing the day was done, or wasted,
And thought about his school, how they
Used to run for miles around a grass circle,
And never feel tired. And he thought of friends who
Had fallen into ambition, success
And failure. He should have written letters
But didn’t. What was it that he had wanted,
Running around that grass track? What was the thing
He would now say he had missed? Nothing. He felt
That day’s paper slip from his hands,
His muscles loosen, and lids close over eyes
That still stared into a garden near dark,
Where birds flitted about, unnoticed.
Page(s) 25
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