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).