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Kathleen Bell - Seen through Toughened Glass

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter

Seen through Toughened Glass
Kathleen Bell

A helicopter spins
silent as sunlight. Mouthing builders
climb and grin.
New flats are stacked like coffins.

Terraces fade, lace curtains
have pulled themselves across, and grief
forces a woman to her knees.
I smile at the vitality of cranes.

The stadiums are empty, clean,
unfinished. Scarlet scaffolds
rise round a tower, spread and twist.

Perhaps the guarded shopping centre holds
a future shining as our past,
or any past polished for your belief.

 

 

Kathleen Bell has recently had poems published in PN Review, New Walk and Under the Radar. She had two poems included in the recent anthology of contemporary Quaker poets, A Speaking Silence, and her pamphlet, at the memory exchange, is published by Oystercatcher. She teaches creative writing at De Montfort University in Leicester.

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter. Please include a short, third-person biography and author photo with all submissions: wveditor@gmail.com

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