Morning-room
Sudley House, morning-room, with Keeley Halswelle, Sonning Weir (oil on canvas, c. 1882)
In the morning-room the water slides
over the weir, makes a wide
shallow fall into broken white
the pool above perfectly smooth
mirroring deep blackgreen trees
the pool below all turbulence
& the lip, the line, the place of fall
water dividing itself from itself
or coming maybe into its own.
At the far end of the upper pool
a boat-house reflecting itself
as though itself a floating thing
or as though it extended into the depths
a calm green reception room
where you might sit through eternities
until you felt in yourself the slow pull
the drift to the wide shallow lip
& the shattering.
Leonora
after Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier
When I started to know the truth of my life
I turned within Where else to turn?
I harboured myself I took shelter
inside my name
I was perfectly Leonora
no breeze no flicker ruffling the water
The four of us
stepping our secret minuets
& no one to know the long hours the soft sounds
in the passageway
Only that once only that day
when she said what she said
& I cracked I broke I slipped through my hands
like porcelain
& I ran
back down the winding stairs
& he followed me her young man
her poor fool
I said Don’t you know Can’t you see
and I saw nothing he knew nothing
& I was quick again Leonora
no breeze no flicker ruffling the water
& we went on the four of us
smiling shining perfectly
onto the rocks
____________
Helen Tookey lives in Liverpool. She has published three poetry collections with Carcanet
Press, most recently In the Quaker Hotel (2022).
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