Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Deborah Tyler-Bennett

print this page

Floodlands

Faffing with tickets, we swap pleasantries,
train windows frame paprika colts who breeze,
rooks scud mercurial furrows and are gone.
She’s seventy, en route to see her son,
Glass doll-eyes rock my chilled reflection.
Onion-skinned pamphlets from her Asda bag,
‘Leaflet?’ - ‘No thanks, don’t think so...’ Laugh-lines sag.

‘They tell the story of my husband’s life,
He died a year ago, these... last a wife
could do. Our work began in the East End -
lice, fevers.’ As we slowly round a bend
her land-locked pupils puddle. ‘Read this, friend,
he wrote it on escaping from near death,
I prayed he’d live, believed God knew his worth

and swore I’d follow - any place on earth
but not if he changed faith. Too much like pain.
We went to, what’s now called, Zaire.’ Again
eye-ducts are grey mawed gargoyles spilling rain.



Marsha Levin - Untitled illustration


Back to top