Annabella Massey - Ice in Leamington
by and published in Edition Twelve of Pomegranate
The clouds unpack. I think of you in your house,
your porch roof cracked out and buckled
over the steps; rubble squared off by red
plastic wrap. Keep the coverlet with roses, the white
fireplace. I know it has snowed here: we discover there
is difficulty in walking on ice. We all have to wear
large boots we normally never would touch,
the kind my father always wanted me to get.
Salt helps, but not too much. You talk about your tendrils
of breath: sea-life and insects emerge, retract, recall
their heads. I circle my knees and press against the heater
which later clicks on. The air here makes nothing happen.
Annabella Massey
Annabella Massey was one of the commended poets for the 2006 Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, and on the final shortlist for the Christopher Tower Poetry Competition 2007. She has poems forthcoming in the next Tower Poetry anthology. She is twenty-one years old, and currently in her second year reading English Literature and Creative Writing at Warwick University.