Authoress, 1845

Time is the thing – she knows
she’s a surplus of money and
love, but her hours wear thin
as a threadbare purse. Maybe

she has offered too many too
much, she thinks; her pupils
linger beneath the smoke-stained
windows, half-drawn in tawny

shades of light, as though
expecting a gospel she is
unable to impart. Still, in
the evenings her little ones

eat up her tales: she loops
heroes and warriors through
paragraph and page, scarcely
a hoof catching in her words.

Her husband complains of
the ink on her fingers - but
she has all but finished,
perfection skirting closer hour

by hour. She admits, anyway,
she is tired of it now, and tired
of this town, where smoke
and fumes clog the sky, the air,

her very skin. A sallow moon
scrapes up between stacks
and wheels as she undresses,
syllables still clocking through

her veins: they gather pace like
a heartbeat, like the coming
out of stars; one chasing another,
incessant, as night shudders in.

New Year

New year’s day near its end,
the Social sags with streamers,
walls parading fresh stains.
Television dissolves softly

at the back of the room;
beneath its screen, her head is
on the table, beer channelling
her blouse. Flesh shudders

across her back: they leave their
chairs, rest down their palms.
She stills. Her hands clutch, wet
and empty. They take her glass.

Anna Lewis lives and works in Manchester, and she has been published in magazines including Poetry Wales and Mslexia. Earlier this year, she performed some of her poetry at the Welsh Assembly.