This Heart
This cancelled cheque stub
This ruby nightdress, flammable/
inflammable
This pack of spare Catherine wheels
This sack of reindeer antlers
dry to tinder—this pot of glue
This kindling
This old lover’s glove, stitched leather
This mechanical sunshine
This poem begun again
This poem begun again
This hillock overlooking the Atlantic
in the evening, lambs blarting
This four-chambered castle, draughty,
time-shared—this pump—pimp
This pampered infant, stubborn-cheeked
This limping beggar
This heroine in a Grimms fairytale
plaits matted, freckles blanched
This carrier-bag
stuffed with old calendars
These urgent messages
(first published in Envoi 161, February 2012)
Geraldine Clarkson has been a Jerwood/Arvon mentee and an Escalator prizewinner. Two of her prose poems were published in This Line is Not for Turning: An Anthology of Contemporary British Prose Poetry (Cinnamon, 2011).
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