{"id":644,"date":"2010-04-22T11:50:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-22T11:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=644"},"modified":"2010-04-22T11:50:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-22T11:50:00","slug":"myra-connell-is-thinking-of-jars-of-jam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/myra-connell-is-thinking-of-jars-of-jam\/","title":{"rendered":"Myra Connell is thinking of jars of jam"},"content":{"rendered":"


Her China Seagull<\/span>


It is smooth like skin but cold.<\/span>
When I lick it it tastes like salt.<\/span>
(We must be careful at all times and know what we want.)<\/span>
When I see it, I think of my grandmother,<\/span>
I think of her house and the cellar with the jars of jam.<\/span>

I think of her house with the cellar and the jars of jam<\/span>
and of the garden, and the orchard,<\/span>
and the blackbirds in summer in the cherry-tree above the wall.<\/span>
It is smooth like skin but cold<\/span>
and when I lick it it tastes like salt.<\/span>

We must be careful and at all times know what we want;<\/span>
but the seagull is smooth to the touch and cold,<\/span>
and I think of my grandmother<\/span>
and her fingers which were bent, and which plaited<\/span>
each morning the long hair of her daughters.<\/span>

And I think of her house with its cellar<\/span>
and the jars of jam and preserves,<\/span>
and of the orchard, and her hands stained with beetroot.<\/span>
My seagull is smooth like skin.<\/span>
When I lick it it reminds me of salt <\/span>
and of the blackbird, that last summer, in the tree by the wall.<\/span>
 <\/span>
 <\/span>
* Myra Connell's<\/span> second collection of poems <\/span>From the Boat<\/span> has just been launched by Nine Arches Press (<\/span>www.ninearchespress.com<\/a>) <\/span>

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Her China SeagullIt is smooth like skin but cold.When I lick it it tastes like salt.(We must be careful at all times and know what we want.)When I see it, I think of my grandmother,I think of her house and the cellar with the jars of jam.I think of her house with the cellar and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}