Mimi Khalvati
Blue Moon
Sitting on a window sill, swinging
her heels against the wall as the gymslips
circled round and Elvis sang Blue Moon,
she never thought one day to see her daughter,
barelegged, sitting crosslegged on saddlebags
that served as sofas, pulling on an ankle
as she nodded sagely, smiling, not denying:
you’ll never catch me dancing to the same old tunes;
while her brother, strewed along a Futon,
grappled with his Sinclair, setting up
a programme we had asked him to. Tomorrow
he would teach us how to use it, but for now
he lay intent, aloof, peripheral
in its cold white glare as we went up to our rooms:
rooms we once exchanged, like trust, or guilt,
each knowing hers would serve the other better
while the other’s, at least for now, would do.
The house is going on the market soon.
My son needs higher ceilings; and my daughter
sky for her own Blue Moon. You can’t blame her.
No woman wants to dance in her Mum’s old room.
magazine list
- Features
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- 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