Two poems by Kathryn Simmonds
Winter Morning
Rain sings spirituals across the pane
as Old Man River rises, rouses me
to dip a toe into the semi-dark
where half-read novels and a bowl
of last night's cereal still float.
Birds gang up in dripping trees,
already morning fills my IN tray
and I'm thinking of the journey home.
Winter how I love you for you speed
the darkness back to me, return me to my bed
where my titanic longings are revived
and sail around again colossally in dreams.
My bed, still almost warm, safe
as a lover whom I do not have to please.
Mourning
I am wearing the top
I wore last night,
the one with the orange blossom print
which you admired,
and jogging bottoms I don’t remember
getting into.
On the floor, a pile of bedclothes
on which I vomited
sometime in the early hours,
sitting up in bed
composed as a Buddha
bile splashing darkness,
and that thought again -
how filthy and miraculous this is,
the inside forcing free
as if I might bring up my own heart
or a kidney in its sack
there to be examined
on my lap.
No duvet then
but a towel and blanket.
It is 11.23 and May and raining softly.
My legs have sprouted stubble in the night.
Mascara smuts
the skin beneath my eyes.
I don’t do anything but lie still
listening to the rain.
Last night I was beautiful.
Found via
jamesleejobe.
Rain sings spirituals across the pane
as Old Man River rises, rouses me
to dip a toe into the semi-dark
where half-read novels and a bowl
of last night's cereal still float.
Birds gang up in dripping trees,
already morning fills my IN tray
and I'm thinking of the journey home.
Winter how I love you for you speed
the darkness back to me, return me to my bed
where my titanic longings are revived
and sail around again colossally in dreams.
My bed, still almost warm, safe
as a lover whom I do not have to please.
Mourning
I am wearing the top
I wore last night,
the one with the orange blossom print
which you admired,
and jogging bottoms I don’t remember
getting into.
On the floor, a pile of bedclothes
on which I vomited
sometime in the early hours,
sitting up in bed
composed as a Buddha
bile splashing darkness,
and that thought again -
how filthy and miraculous this is,
the inside forcing free
as if I might bring up my own heart
or a kidney in its sack
there to be examined
on my lap.
No duvet then
but a towel and blanket.
It is 11.23 and May and raining softly.
My legs have sprouted stubble in the night.
Mascara smuts
the skin beneath my eyes.
I don’t do anything but lie still
listening to the rain.
Last night I was beautiful.
Found via
jamesleejobe.