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Stella Davis
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                             featured poet -  Katherine Gallagher

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Collection Tigers on the Silk Road,  2000

Arc Publications,  ISBN 1 900072 47 5  

 

Poinsettias
     
(for M)

 

Daily she chides

her mirror:

 

who is this woman

staring back

 

turning the glass around,

twisting its magnifier

 

seeing a lifetime's portraits

paraded like miniatures -

 

herself at fifteen in the school-

concert, on her wedding-day,

 

in the Alexandra Chorus,

at her son's graduation?

 

She gathers in her few strands

under the blonde-curled wig

 

studies her pinched skin,

wanting a sign,

 

a rouge

in her cheeks 

 

an opposite of surrender.

The love of red will save her.

 

 

            *****

 

Solo lamps articulate

each starred bush. Leaves become flowers,

flowers become leaves,

fine red stems shedding fire, sunrise-bright.

She sees herself walking through

their thick wall, a cascade of scarlet

at the hospital entrance.

 

Daily the tread through white-lined leaves,

the bloodless veined maps, red-topped -

their blazes reminders.

 

When she grows tired, it is right

to look away, forget

the furrowed richness.

 

Three months have scarred me. . .

She studies photographs

from last Christmas:

 

she and her sons

among the prized

dye-bright coal-flowers

 

that will not be extinguished,

will fall off the stem

and fold in at their own pace.

 

 

  (Excerpt from Poinsettias )

 

Katherine Gallagher

 

  

  Katherine Gallagher photo

new on site:
Sarah Barnsley
Graham Burchell
Kavita Jindal
Fawzia Kane
Mandy Pannett
Lynda O'Neill

  new pages:
Leah Fritz
(Reviews);
Carolyn King;
Jehane Markham;
Gill McEvoy (poems)

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     next: Poetry on the Lake, Italy, 12th May

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