Anne Born
A Nice Corner
How we have always made walls
with willing stones piled one on one
to keep our dreams, the subjugated,
possessed, in.
Low: to jump over.
Towering: to keep in or out.
Exterior: to impress
Interior: to protect, warm, adorn.
We grew clever at angles and meetings.
Made them smooth, coloured, textured.
Varied with curves and odd perspectives
Alcoves, openings.
Then corners: meeting places.
Junctions. Used for a cell
with inward-moving doors,
to confine ever closer.*
Or to chasten the unruly.
The five-year-old is stood in a corner.
She has not been naughty, her parents have.
How simple they are! It is a place
to dream from.
She is the chastiser: ‘Nice corner’,
her voice is a bell, innocent.
‘Pretty corner. She likes the corner.’
They are defeated. But in her triumph
she is merciful. Emerges with the smile
of the angel she is.
Page(s) 86
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