A poem by Rebecca Watts

Now it’s autumn
and another year in which I could leave you
is a slowly sinking ship.

The air has developed edges
and I am preparing to let myself lie
in a curtained apartment,

safe in the knowledge that strangers
have ceased to gather and laugh
in the lane below

and the brazen meadow no longer
presumes to press its face to the window
like an inquisitor.

Soon even the river will evince a thicker skin,
my breath each morning will flower white,
and all of summer’s schemes will fly like cuckoos.

The leaves are turning and the trees
are shaking them off. Bonfire smoke
between us like a promise lingers.

Retirado daqui. Do livro The Met Office Advises Caution. Carcanet Press, 2016.