Helen Ivory
Tapestry
She began the tapestry late one night
when her husband was asleep.
Insomnia drove her downstairs,
while the sound of his breathing
filled the room like the sea on a stormy night.
Her colours were muted at first.
Soft, feminine, understated;
a reflection of her wardrobe.
Her stitches were faltering,
as she felt her way with the new medium.
As night edged towards morning,
the sound of the sea coursing through the stairwell
prompted a change in her colour scheme.
The stitches too, became bolder, more confident,
as she learnt to ride each crashing wave.
As dawn approached she worked faster,
spurred on by the reddening sky,
her frenzied needle drawing blood.
When sunlight flooded the room,
only then was she able to see the image she had made;
a small boat floundering on a blood-green sea.
Helen Ivory was born in 1969 and lives in Norfolk. In 1999 she won an Eric Gregory Award. Her first collection The Double Life of Clocks will be published by Bloodaxe in Spring 2002.
Page(s) 77
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