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Alison Brackenbury

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Five poems

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Daughter, wild for work, ordered “The Echo”.
Its rain-fresh headlines soaked the mat each night.
She found her job elsewhere, donned her new coat,
Black as a Russian’s, marching off to vote.
New music flared as she flashed out of sight.
Deserted in my hall, I read “The Echo”,

First, the unhappy man, who in his hall
Found letters, not his own, with a chimed name,
The draggled girl’s above, heavy with child.
They talked. He nailed shelves for her. The wild
Partner was freed. They drank, until one day
His head was kicked to pieces in their hall,

They hid him in his carpet’s folds. Wild boar
Flit briar and bracken through the woods of Dean.
Escaped, they truffle acorns. Should they stay,
Plough corn, raid orchards, or be trucked away?
I turn. Slow shadows brush. “Three vans are stolen.”
Who steals? Who finds us? Echo, Echo, more!

Alison Brackenbury was born in Lincolnshire in 1953. She now lives in Gloucestershire, where she has worked for almost twenty years in the family metal finishing business. Her latest collection is Singing in the Dark (Carcanet, 2008). New poems can be read at her website: www.alisonbrackenbury.co.uk. Her collections include Dreams of Power (1981), Breaking Ground (1984), Christmas Roses (1988), Selected Poems (1991), 1829 (1995), After Beethoven (2000) and Bricks and Ballads (2004). Her poems have been included on BBC Radio 3 and 4. Her work recently won a Cholmondeley Award.

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