Richard Burns (u.s.a.)
suffering, ocean
Look, what I remember most
is her turn away from water.
her walk, flat-tummied, toward me
up the beach, trudging tiny blue-clad
through soft sand
in her wonderful hip-swing horizon.
Limp carousel of swung hair,
droplets clicked against my cheek.
Her shoulders were tight flesh;
her gaunt love-smile tore me.
What is there to say?
"The ocean is indeed limitless"?
"Motion. Space. Man. Woman."?
This world unwrapped,
this washed heart of the earth
that teaches me all my nightmares,
all my delights, that holds my soul
up next to the sun, thought's pulse
proving I am alive-- this is enough
of a lesson, enough of preparation,
to reach out for another, trusting
to overcome the fragility, the distance.
Page(s) 55
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