PoetryAloud
Ashley Bovan Reads
As You Are, So It Is
Clouds reflected in windows as she approached the telephone
box that sat on the edge of scrap land used for village parking. The gravel was still wet but summer warmth eased in when a section of sky cleared; grey turned blue. She stopped and glanced towards the shops; two rows of seven formed into a corm-shape. She reached into the side-pocket of her denim work-clothes and pulled out a black wood rosary Turn the corner past the disused school left then third left (stop and talk) avoid the rubbish in the gutter and alley go through a gate set into a high concrete- bricked wall (enjoy the holly-trellised vine, dandelion, bulrush, betony) walk to the kitchen back-door. Admire the trestle-table, ordinary furniture, scullery and parlour, luxurious orange-spicy incense, garlands of poppy, fennel and primrose, delicious gummy muscatel raisins followed by quiche and currant-slice. Sleepy now...wallpaper, patterned, lightly floral...cornice, frieze like icing... curtain-lace... screening daylight... vaporous material...milk-snow undulance... February-Autumn -- (yes, that season again) a journal filled with illucid mischief; sulphurous medicine I confess, I was imprisoned, malnourished -- destined to remain immured -- picturing a way-out |
Ashley Bovan
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