Slivers
Slivers was selected for Matthew Francis's Guardian online poetry workshop and published on Guardian online in April 2008.
Slivers
For their anniversary, he brings roses she can't see,
seeping scent she can't share.
A nurse slips the thin stalks into water
while he daubs his wife's seamed lips
with Vaseline, uses a borrowed
baby brush to unbramble her hair.
Then, sitting beside her,
he sips plastic tea, nibbles a wafer.
He wishes he could bring her tastes,
share the sweet crunch of his biscuit.
Slivers of time melt on his tongue, unearth
memories lying like fossils between thin strata.
He tastes grass on her fingers, remembers
rolling down a hill, her voice tickling,
feather-soft hair on his face,
her mouth unpicked and sweet as chocolate...
Sarah James
Comments, Pingbacks:
· http://www.freewebs.com/theapprenticewriter/ Thank you for sharing it with us - and congratulations on having it published.
(But didn't I read this a few days ago?)
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16/07/08 @ 20:29 · http://www.milltech-systems.co.uk Simple answer to your question is probably yes and no! I put it on my blog system at the weekend, with a future publication date. So it didn't appear on my blog until today, but it would have gone out to subscribers' inboxes the day I put it in the system!
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16/07/08 @ 20:37