for Tilla Brading

above Greenaleigh

lower buds
thinking without

Tilla, the tides
the tides
are always too early
or too late
to swallow
words
nowhere to lay them
on the beach

crests cannot
catch up
too many, white, commas
clustering
not spacing

on the path
white trainers of morning
her morning
of terracotta terrace
trend

ended heather
pressure
deeper blue
grounds
sea cloud
say it's dolphins

back pack
voices
remind me
of reading
Martin Eden
on this knoll
disintegrating
edition and waiting
for stragglers

or another burden

this great burden
on my back
will sink me
will sink me lower

these arms around my shoulders
these legs around my waist
between us
we carried
the twins

 

copyright © Frances Presley, 2005.

'this great burden . . .' from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress

Frances Presley lives in London. She is a contributing editor to the online magazine How2, and her most recent collection is Paravane, New & Selected Poems 1996-2003 (Salt Publishing, 2004). The poems featured in this issue will appear in her next volume, Myne: Selected Poems and Prose 1978-2003, to be published by Shearsman in 2006.