Two Poems
Beatrice Ashton-Lelliot
Summer 2021
Beatrice Ashton-Lelliot
Summer 2021
WE GET INTO THE HAUNTED SWING
step inside / my new sensation
(apparent, gyrations)
take a seat, this kerosene lamp
my family photos – our baby pram
oscillations, amplitude of
(apparent, a parent)
a most weird sensation
domestic bliss, yet the old
cat dies / bent crank fashion
journaled, on the swing bar,
this room, my best illusion,
this house,
this home, my immaculate deception
can you invert a life, a space
without disaster?
the swinging party leave, just you and me
bones of a home, flesh of a family,
organ grinder down the middle
easy to turn quite inside out, once
you know the spell
the trick
the device
the men
the finale: the guts of our illusion
this inverse magic,
whirling, heaving
we get into/in to/in two
the haunted swing
Carrington’s 104th birthday
laughing, hyena-like
amphitheatres in the rain
didn’t I know, once
the sound of your death
diminished or grotesque?
the sight of a shawl on a
far flung sandbank
shoal of chipped coals
ancients, undulating
when I heard your name
over the ferris wheel screams
spilling down the coastal slick
to avoid any perception
any weird perversion
of vulnerable fox-shrieks
step inside / my new sensation
(apparent, gyrations)
take a seat, this kerosene lamp
my family photos – our baby pram
oscillations, amplitude of
(apparent, a parent)
a most weird sensation
domestic bliss, yet the old
cat dies / bent crank fashion
journaled, on the swing bar,
this room, my best illusion,
this house,
this home, my immaculate deception
can you invert a life, a space
without disaster?
the swinging party leave, just you and me
bones of a home, flesh of a family,
organ grinder down the middle
easy to turn quite inside out, once
you know the spell
the trick
the device
the men
the finale: the guts of our illusion
this inverse magic,
whirling, heaving
we get into/in to/in two
the haunted swing
Carrington’s 104th birthday
laughing, hyena-like
amphitheatres in the rain
didn’t I know, once
the sound of your death
diminished or grotesque?
the sight of a shawl on a
far flung sandbank
shoal of chipped coals
ancients, undulating
when I heard your name
over the ferris wheel screams
spilling down the coastal slick
to avoid any perception
any weird perversion
of vulnerable fox-shrieks