In the Archives – Charlotte Cosgrove

 

I keep a list of all the books I’ve ever read.

A catalogue of all the presents I receive.

It is not the reading of the book,

Or the opening of the gift,

That excites me.

It is the afterwards.

Like the look you give

After sex, days later, at dinner.

I write that down, too.

How many times, how long it lasted.

I don’t mark these things out of ten,

I don’t compare them to each other.

They are just there –

For data.

A hoarding of my history.

 

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Charlotte Cosgrove is a poet and English lecturer from Liverpool, England. Her work has appeared in Trouvaille Review, Dreich, The Literary Yard, The Broadkill Review, Wingless Dreamer, Confingo, Beyond Words and various anthologies online and in print. She is editor of Rough Diamond poetry journal. Her first poetry book Silent Violence with Petals will be published with Kelsay Books in June 2022.

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December 5, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: afterwards, archive, book, books, catalogue, Charlotte Cosgrove, creative, creativity, excitement, gift, history, life, Liverpool, marks, memory, poem, poet, Poetry, present, reading, time, UK, writing 1 Comment

Eva – Spangle McQueen

 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers – Emily Dickinson

 

If I left you a feather

preserved

in Burmese amber

would you treasure

 

this coelurosaur’s gift

wrapped in semi-

translucent resin?

Would you release

 

the ferrous

traces of my blood –

hopeful of

cloning?

 

Or would you reject

this humble

hollow-tailed thing –

ignore me – in favour of

an angel’s token?

 

 

Spangle McQueen is a happy grandma and hopeful poet living in Sheffield.

November 15, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: angel, blood, cloning, creative, creativity, feather, gift, history, hope, life, nature, past, poem, Poetry, rejection, Sheffield, Spangle McQueen, time, token, traces, treasure, UK, writing Leave a comment

Occurrences – Kitty Coles

 

I think you are returning, cell by cell.

At night, sometimes, I note the air arrange

itself the way it would when you entered

a room, the floor boards stirring at

your unseen tread, the house exhaling.

 

Dark thickens and I sense you winding,

winding, its fibres tight, making a rope

to reach me, stretching yourself across

its molecules, to gift me with a breath,

a dream, a shadow of your shape.

 

You’re learning tricks for bridging time

and distance. You heat me with your eyes

when mine are closed though, when the lids fly up,

there’s nothing of you except a footprint

hollowing the carpet, some disarray

 

among the bed covers. This morning,

I opened a book and found a hair

between the pages, dark like yours, and my

heart wrenched itself free and moved around my body,

the way that only you can make it move.

 

My limbs are marked with violet-coloured bruises

like little blossoms the size of fingertips.

You send me messages in newspapers

and in the way leaves fall, the calls of birds.

My spit is thickened with the taste of you.

 

 

Kitty is one of the two winners of the Indigo Dreams Pamphlet Prize 2016 and her debut pamphlet, Seal Wife, was published in September 2017.

October 9, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: air, body, breath, cells, creative, creativity, dark, dream, gift, heart, house, humanity, Kitty Coles, messages, nature, pages, poem, Poetry, room, senses, shadow, tricks, writing Leave a comment