Joyce Mandel Walter
Bar Maid
Hungry for change,
she sees them all as fruit
A melon in the man demanding
stout and chips. Her boss a pineapple
in need of coring. She sees herself
far away from him, from here,
a flying trapeze artist showering
champagne over crowds.
Grab marks on her wrists part of the act.
Her smile no act at all.
When men’s eyes pry through her
clothes pretending not to, she becomes
a coconut - scratchy, un-milked -
safe from bare hands.
And by the end of her shift
when smoke invades every pore
she conjures up a long-stemmed crystal bowl
filled to the brim with ripe satsumas
each one a globe of sun on call
from some hot island - Fiji, Tortuga, Bimini
peels back skin, releases zest into the air.
Joyce Mandel Walter is originally from Brooklyn, NY. She now lives in Kent and works as a journalist and editor in London. Her poetry has won awards, prizes and has been widely published.
Page(s) 18
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