Tag: Swan

Two Poems by Jacqueline Jules

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Sleeping Swans

I pause by the water to stare
at white feathered bodies
floating so peacefully limp
they appear to be dead.

How can swans sleep
with their heads tucked
beneath their wings?

Another question I can’t answer
as I amble along a path
winding past boats on one side
and cruising cars on the other.

The day is dense with clouds
consuming the light I need
to see what lies ahead.

How long will the sky remain
overcast without pouring rain?

I don’t even know if my legs
will last another mile.

I could trip or get a cramp,
anything could happen
between now and the time
I reach my favorite bench
to view the missing horizon.

Just like my beloved could fall
again or have another fever
in the house where he waits for me,
too frail to join my walks.

When he drifts off during the day,
I watch him like these swans, afraid
his awkward slouch means
he will not wake from his chair.

*

I’ll Be There Now

“Are you afraid of lice?” my son asks,
informing me he just treated the kids
he needs me to babysit.

Am I? Afraid of bugs a shampoo can kill
after three years of dodging an airborne virus
which shut down the world for months on end?

Keeping six feet apart was sensible once.
Until isolation became an ingrained habit.

At the height of it, I asked for
backwards hugs, avoiding droplets
from little noses and mouths

So now that they’re back in school,
kissing hair, not cheeks is risky too.

I’m at an age when the muscle that pumps
my blood could fail with less warning
than a sore throat progressing to a cough.

How long can I wait to embrace the life
I stayed alone in my house to protect?

“Don’t worry,” I tell my son.
“I’ll be there as planned at 6.”

*

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications. jacquelinejules.com

Two Poems by Bex Hainsworth

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Swan

She was standing on the roof of the old mill building.
Two storeys above us, she was a spectre, her feathers
luminous in the dark. A moon-shadow,
thoroughly confused by her urban landing.

We paused on the pavement below, both blinking
to see if she would disappear, only a shared vision.
Yet she remained, strange shade, exquisite gargoyle.

The street’s silence was stirred by the taxi, humming
on the curb. Driving away, we watched through
the rear window, hoping to see wings unfurl.

At the restaurant, we spoke with others in hushed voices
about friends in Italy, hand soap, and closures.
Eyes flitting, our thoughts prickled with uncertainty.

Later, dropped on the same corner, we walked past
another apparition: a van, large and pale, doors thrown open.
And inside, our swan, curled up in its depths like a pearl.

The RSPCA officer told us he was heading north,
to Nottingham, for a release by the river.

Twelve days later, we went into lockdown.
I thought of the swan: roof-ghost, phantom, harbinger.

*

North

I stand inside
a wreath of trees.
The hills, cave-coloured,
blue with rain, seem
to sway like kelp.

From somewhere
in the deep
comes the taste
of saltwater, a sharpness
like needles at my feet.
I dream myself back
into sunny colours.
The red cliffs of Mornington,
as warm as one minute
into death. A brick split
open, the blade of time
slipped from throat to tail.

The sky peers down
and sees itself, complicit.
Its soul, black,
shark-shaped, predatory,
stays away from the shallows.

A blood-spot
of reflected cloud
at the heart of it all
retracts like an anemone
as the shadow passes over.

I see these colours
bleeding into each other
as the sun clots on
the blue horizon
of hills and trees.
The cliffs decay
into a kelpish mist.

There is no
escaping the cold.

*

Bex Hainsworth (she/her) is a bisexual poet and teacher based in Leicester, UK. She won the Collection HQ Prize as part of the East Riding Festival of Words and her work has appeared in Visual Verse, Neologism, Atrium, Acropolis Journal, and Brave Voices Magazine. Find her on Twitter @PoetBex.