Merryn Williams
Scarborough Sonnet
I dreamed I met you, with my little boy
clinging to my skirts, beside Anne Brontë’s grave.
After we’d talked a bit, you asked me, ‘why
did you walk out?’ I said, ‘I couldn’t save
you from yourself. The drink, your awful friends –'.
The child ran off, played happily in the churchyard.
‘And I’ve a question too; why did you send
that letter, smugly saying that you were married?’
You didn’t answer, just said, ‘I can defend
myself from other people, but not you.
Unconsummated love - there’s no clean end -
she understood’. The pink geraniums grew
around Anne’s bed. I woke and you weren’t there.
The baby crying. Gulls and North Sea air.
clinging to my skirts, beside Anne Brontë’s grave.
After we’d talked a bit, you asked me, ‘why
did you walk out?’ I said, ‘I couldn’t save
you from yourself. The drink, your awful friends –'.
The child ran off, played happily in the churchyard.
‘And I’ve a question too; why did you send
that letter, smugly saying that you were married?’
You didn’t answer, just said, ‘I can defend
myself from other people, but not you.
Unconsummated love - there’s no clean end -
she understood’. The pink geraniums grew
around Anne’s bed. I woke and you weren’t there.
The baby crying. Gulls and North Sea air.
 |
Page(s) 44
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