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An Extract from The Don't Touch Garden by Kate Foley

by Rebecca Robinson July 1, 2015

My mother’s story
skimmed blue as milk

rounds no stones in buried watercourses
deposits no shattered teacups

is breath
and as breath
grows thin and fitful no longer equal to the task
of story
scattering the small hard seed of consonants and vowels.

The ponderous gold grille of the bakelite
wireless sieved
fragments and static foreign as semaphore.

Where do the words go?
Up in Annie’s room behind the clock she said.
Let me tell it I’d say.
You weren’t there she’d answer as if there was a time
when I was not.

Now I must go quietly and cannily as an evening fox
carrying my wounded bundle of news
in my careful mouth.

Kate Foley, taken from the The Don’t Touch Garden, published in 2015 by Arachne Press.

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An Extract from The Don't Touch Garden by Kate Foley

My mother’s storyskimmed blue as milk

rounds no stones in buried watercoursesdeposits no shattered teacups

is breathand as breathgrows thin and fitful no longer equal to the taskof storyscattering the small hard seed of consonants and vowels.

The ponderous gold grille of the bakelitewireless sievedfragments and static foreign as semaphore.

Where do the words go?Up in Annie’s room behind the clock she said.Let me tell it I’d say.You weren’t there she’d answer as if there was a timewhen I was not.

Now I must go quietly and cannily as an evening foxcarrying my wounded bundle of newsin my careful mouth.