Caroline Natzler
Anniversary trip
The heat is second-hand, burns back from stone.
Arcades dark as skulls’ eyes.
Too hot to hold your hand,
besides, why risk it here?
We tread across the square to find a cafe
pick our way through a tangle of wrought iron
chairs—
I hold them back like brambles for you to pass
trying courtesy.
We sit, the only women, our flesh heavy.
Pigeons strut around old canon balls
palm tree shadows waver, uncertain camouflage.
Midday.
A toddler chases a pigeon that can hardly be
bothered.
Shriek, flurry, and stop. Shriek, flurry, and stop.
Swift groups of men finger small packages
as a policeman watches in a corner
his braids white.
The cafe table is scarred
and you’re crying because the tortilla is a cold slab
left over from last night.
Arcades dark as skulls’ eyes.
Too hot to hold your hand,
besides, why risk it here?
We tread across the square to find a cafe
pick our way through a tangle of wrought iron
chairs—
I hold them back like brambles for you to pass
trying courtesy.
We sit, the only women, our flesh heavy.
Pigeons strut around old canon balls
palm tree shadows waver, uncertain camouflage.
Midday.
A toddler chases a pigeon that can hardly be
bothered.
Shriek, flurry, and stop. Shriek, flurry, and stop.
Swift groups of men finger small packages
as a policeman watches in a corner
his braids white.
The cafe table is scarred
and you’re crying because the tortilla is a cold slab
left over from last night.
Caroline Natzler teaches creative writing in London. Her collection, Design Fault, was published by Flambard in 2001.
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