Beverley Bie
Le Bain Turc
after Ingres
When did we last have a bath together,
my sister and I? What to do with this key -
Odalisque having nothing to hide?
Lock it up in the female quarters
where the indolent women laze all day long
in vaporous gauze, fingers massaging
turbans of flesh. Snuggle in -
you do me, I’ll do you; we’ll work up a lather,
skin waxed and glistening,
laid out on a cool marble slab
almond-oiled and perfumed, almost embalmed;
swap versions of memories... sigh
this could be life: timeshare a plump sultan
who’ll be down in a wink with his faithful eunuch
to have one or two of us. What a dream
we agree over thimbles of tea, trays
of Turkish delight, pistachio sticking
to Mother’s sweet fingers. Though it’s time
we found the keys to the clothes and the car
at the gate to the Jardin des Plantes
(metre expired, but who cares, it’s August),
giddy as a pair of worn-out children,
and no disagreements - at least for the moment
all's luxe, calme et volupté-
and what more could one ask?
Page(s) 98
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