Mario Petrucci
Stay
I always lace her, a husband’s right to cross these ruby strands.
In Glasgow, father’s steps from the door were of unequal height
so the unfamiliar tread would trip, raise the alarm.
I’ll make like staircase of her back, a flight no lover
can decode - reverse the plait at the thirteenth
eyehole to throw the bastard hand. Chastity
belts, they say, make of locksmiths favoured
lovers. That corsetiere, Alexis,
came to tea too often. I work
at completing my wife - an hour
glass whose neck will not let time
pass, her spine a tight ship I
can steer past royalty -
until the whalebone creaks
with each breath like the
last gasp of a wreck,
breath in shallow
draughts as if her
breast had been
brushed in the
street by a strang-
ler’s hand
Page(s) 52
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