Rosemary Norman
Exposure
Because I have never seen India
I believe it is turmeric coloured
in most parts, and in the famous
season of rain even the heavens are,
although they are otherwise blue.
I think the cousins who climbed up
in the underparts of a real plane
to fly to some imaginary England
breathed a grubby, golden air
and swaggered in their hearts to be
two slight forms, slipping unobserved...
Hours later, over the roofs of Kew,
the boy falling out of the sky
towards the disused warehouse yard
was dead already. All I know of this
is when a plane comes in to land -
the long, level steps downward.
I think the pulses stretch out in time
as the body gives up its stored heat,
and drop below lost consciousness
to nil. They fly the living boy home
almost at once, almost as cold.
I believe it is turmeric coloured
in most parts, and in the famous
season of rain even the heavens are,
although they are otherwise blue.
I think the cousins who climbed up
in the underparts of a real plane
to fly to some imaginary England
breathed a grubby, golden air
and swaggered in their hearts to be
two slight forms, slipping unobserved...
Hours later, over the roofs of Kew,
the boy falling out of the sky
towards the disused warehouse yard
was dead already. All I know of this
is when a plane comes in to land -
the long, level steps downward.
I think the pulses stretch out in time
as the body gives up its stored heat,
and drop below lost consciousness
to nil. They fly the living boy home
almost at once, almost as cold.
Rosemary Norman has published two collections: Threats and Promises (Iron 1991) and Life on Mars (Hearing Eye 1999). She works as a librarian.
Page(s) 10
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