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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Liz Atkin

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She went on a Tuesday afternoon
to the new estate, built on the
once glorious cowslip meadows
and entered the pristine sanctity
of one of the many family showhomes
each with a pretentious name.
She put on the blue plastic overshoes
like elongated shower caps provided
to prevent her dirt walking in.

A single middle-aged nullipara
who had never gone upstairs to bed
in a life of rented rooms and flats
now shuffles around bedrooms one to four
all double glazed and white painted wood,
looks down upon the garden turf square
with standard cherry tree, whose
fallen blossom the new occupants
will be sure to call pink snow,

then, thumbs hooking down under
skirt she squats in the middle
of fitted oatmeal carpet and evacuates
hew bowels of three substantial meals
in a warm stinking pile, tapered off
with a triumphant trumpeting note.

 

Page(s) 36

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