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For Meg
For Meg
(i.m. Meg Sheffield, 1940-1997)
Half the things you did were too scary for me.
Skiing? No thanks. Riding? I've never learnt.
Canoeing? I'd be sure to tip myself out
and stagger home...
You're Beautiful
because you're classically trained.
I'm ugly because I associate piano wire with strangulation.
You're beautiful because you stop to read the cards in newsagents' windows
about lost cats and missing...
The Conjuror
The Conjuror
Arriving early at the cemetery
For 'the one o'clock', we looked around
At the last sparks of other people's grief,
The flowers fading back into the ground.
A card inscribed...
A Sloping Pitch
A Sloping Pitch
Was it butane or propane, Gaz
or Triangia? I can never remember
that kind of detail. I do recall
the air heat-wavering like water
above the stove, the ring
of neat...
Lies and Longing
Lies and Longing
Half the women are asleep on the floor
on pieces of cardboard.
One is face down under a blanket
with her feet and ankle bracelet showing.
Her spear leans against the wall...
The Weight
The Weight
Two horses were put together in the same paddock.
Night and day. In the night and in the day
wet from heat and the chill of the wind
on it. Muzzle to water, snorting, head swinging...
Ends
Ends
At my end of the earth the Atlantic began.
On good days trawlers were flecks far out,
at night the green waves were luminous.
Gulls were the birds that gobbled my crusts
and the air in...
A blade of grass
You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.
I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more...
Wall
Wall
The wall walks the fell -
Grey millipede on slow
Stone hooves;
Its slack back hollowed
At gulleys and grooves,
Or shouldering over
Old boulders
Too big to be...
