ConnieBensley
Open Plan
As usual, the escalator is a temptation.
Riding up from Handbags to Furniture
she peers down at China and Glass -
a department full of white lights
and winking facets, of delicately poised
tea services, of crystal jugs and bowls,
all inviting her (come on, come on)
to plunge head first over the rail.
What a satisfying smash it would make,
and how it would divert the sales assistants
for weeks: …she looked quite ordinary...
half the Waterford and Crown Derby gone...
Tessa from Scarves tried a tourniquet...
the ambulance was quick, but not quick enough.
Now she has finished in Furniture. Perhaps
she should go down by the back stairs?
But the escalator cannot be resisted.
Overtly calm, heart racing,
(a novice diver to a high board)
she steps towards it.
Page(s) 7
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