Jennifer Barraclough
Living Rooms
1
Crowded with other people’s things -
An empty space till Sunday tea.
Behind the glass, the china roses freeze.
No books, no conversation here.
Space I don’t share with people who live somewhere else,
At work, or down the pub, or in the other room.
Living is just adjacency.
2
What I’ve got now is more the thing I meant -
A way of settling down together.
A painting of the moors, a book of poems,
A brief untidiness across the surfaces.
I’m looking out, at trees and grass,
A bluebell run, quince blossom, rain,
Four blackbirds, thin, young, spruce,
Dipping at grass seeds, flickering away.
‘We’ll mow the lawn tomorrow, if it’s fine.’
Small things, all shared, make rhythms through the years.
Page(s) 49
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