The second wife & Pelagos
by Anne Bailey
[ poetry - december 05 ]
The second wife
Beyond this window, the river flows onwards;
not like the sea I was not allowed to hear
in the wing of the house never mine.
There is a bridge, with buttresses and footing
sure it can withstand the silt of ages, winter
ice, the increased traffic next market day.
The balcony will catch me if I, dozing, fall
as the walled garden at home never did,
only enclosed, embalmed me in roses.
The curtain falls with my outstretched hand,
is not the damask of the morning room
full of treasures I did not choose.
And that spot upon the window pane
becomes surprising fire of rhododendron,
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
Pelagos
After Barbara Hepworth
Even in this inland city heat
I am cocooned within the wave-form,
the gift of every sea-born child
to sense the ebbing of her tide.
I am molecular, a single cell
with seven heart-strings now fully-exposed,
but refracted through this folding water,
the lens that first creates, then clears all glass.
