poems from 'days of isolation': Lucy Rose Cunningham

day 6

light fades around 7pm

and all I see are lines on pages

faded lines of chemtrails

lines crisscrossed, over spaces opening to a still blue sky;

no breeze, suspended gestures.

Home is a desk; books, pens, my work never done

– a requiem to a wooden table and chair.

---

day 11

my sister called and spoke of

bananas

curling, the day bending round over itself,

morning swallowing night,

day’s darkness arriving late

to the party–

there was a fanfare on the streets

a crescendo of claps hot on the palms

of the people clamoring for the doctors and nurses,

for the NHS reaching for the hands of the workers

reaching for more time more steadiness, certainty

that this time would pass

that those higher up will be moved to

move beyond class;

that lost friends will curl into each other

bodies moulded to the lie of the land

and bananas will curl in a grocers again

where buyers stand close, hand in hand.

---

day 18

a wistful little song;

the blue hour is fast approaching.

---

day 19

I cried again in the night, sought

the little dent on the left side of your forehead,

running fingers across

thick bristle brows that hood your eyes,

a brown scape haloed with gold,

irises framed with the window’s light

touches your hair, a soft mass of black

sprawling, your limbs run over mine,

deep set in the bed

you rock me

and your smile, felt through tears; a warmth I cannot contain.

The morning - it comes and you stand above,

a vignette of muddled longing and hope.

---

Lucy Rose Cunningham is a Leeds based poet with works published in SNOW Literature Review (Journal 7 & 8), Anthony Barnett Publishing House, London; Sync, Free University of Berlin and Das Erotik Magazin, Leipzig. Working with Hong Kong based artist Hou Lam Tsui, she self-published 'From Feeling to Felt' in 2018, acquired by Motto Bookstore Berlin, before acquisition by Asia Art Archive’s Hong Kong and New York Department, in 2019. She is a collector of earthenware and words, with a rooted love for evening rain.  

Find more of the artist’s work at:

https://cargocollective.com/lurose

https://soundcloud.com/1u_rose