Elizabeth Gowing
Monuments, Ephesus
Free now, to violate
these privacies, these taboos,
we break like burglars into shops.
Republicans walk in the prince’s bedroom,
women stand unconcerned in the old men-only loos.
It is now possible to clamber from the temple
straight into the brothel built next door.
We find out all these ancient people’s secrets,
the holes they scraped to hide their cash,
their most sacred prayers
and curses.
Liberated by these dead men
to see such things in our own towns,
we think how a small fig tree could sprout
through the concrete of the shopping mall,
and roots churn up our motorways
casually as one might ruckle sheets
turning in sleep;
we won’t forget the bangles around a girl’s slim fibula
jangling there long after her firm flesh has gone
(we learn that keeping beauty after death
depends on keeping clean your jewellery and teeth).
We shake off all the clutter of our rooms
and work in new found spaces
unperishable as stone;
all that will remain of us
sunk with our crockery and bones.
Elizabeth Gowing studied English at Oxford and now works as a teacher in East London. Her poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies and magazines including Foolscap, Staple 50: Twenty Years of Twentieth Century Poetry, Dillons’ May Anthology, Red Hot Fiesta (Ragged Raven Press), Poetry Nottingham International and (forthcoming) Orbis, The New Writer and Lexicon.
Page(s) 78
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