Poem of the month

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.  ~W.B. Yeats

Testament is from Anne Rouse's collection, THE UPSHOT. Read our review of another of her collections, THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT. She is published by Bloodaxe and you can find out more at their website.

Testament

To my last technician,
I leave this flaming skeleton.

I like you better
than a doctor, or a hairdresser.

My leaving do’s a blast, a whirl,
I’m a party girl,

Nude and ablaze like a tree,
one spectacular x-ray.

Look up from the gauges, be a voyeur,
a happy pyro-connoisseur,

But don’t think to make free
With the calcine ash, the grit of me –

That’s for a feeling hand,
or the wind.

Anne Rouse, The Upshot: New & Selected Poems  (Bloodaxe Books, 2008)