by Helen Ivory | Dec 28, 2020 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
Domain The fork garden is planted by hallmark, by taxonomic value from the tines down. Frost plates the handle, silver lip at the edge of soil, dug out in winter, dug out of winter, bringing up root and louse. If dirt bound and iced in the fork...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 27, 2020 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
Christmas Ritual, 1. After lunch she whispers to the carved mahogany table legs feels around for the mouse cut into the back of the armchair where her grandmother reads paperback mysteries. She names that mouse Moses. Then she slides away from the...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 26, 2020 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
Mad Santa Someone was here, no not me. Someone who wears pink slippers And paints the walls red Who upturns the upholstery. And downs a few swigs at the breakfast table, Tethers around the edge of the circle, asking to be out. Someone with a hood...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 25, 2020 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
Interior, with Child Soon enough, we were holed up in snow. So much to be glad for, our baby between us in the bed. We hummed carols, lit the tree. Such an ochre month. We lay with curtains open, sky a wash of Prussian blue, chimneys smoking, ice creaking on branches....
by Helen Ivory | Dec 24, 2020 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
Mister Bloody Christmas Mam taught me to send his name up the chimney, let it draw away before clawing it back through embers and ash, or to simply stand for hours in the kitchen, peeling, raw hands plunged into a bowl of sorrow, thinking of him....
