Leaving

By Anna Lewis

 

The city spreads like two wings
from the train's thin torso, beating
under watery sun to a half-drawn sky.
While I walked in the streets, shoddy with
smoke and dead leaves, the city's grip
seemed stiff as the pins of a lock

yet now, flattened out to its tips, fraying,
it lifts on sweeps of light: its promises
like so many feathers float free, and the flat
taste of leaving binds my tongue like oil.

 

Anna Lewis was born in 1984, and she is currently studying archaeology at Manchester University. In 2002, she won the first prize in the Christopher Tower poetry competition, and she was also a winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year competition in the same year. Her work has been published in a number of magazines, including Poetry Wales and Mslexia.