Poem
Helen Mort
AN EDITOR\'S PREFACE TO THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE (VOLUME 3)
AN EDITOR\'S PREFACE TO THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE (VOLUME 3)
AN EDITOR\'S PREFACE TO THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE (VOLUME 3)
Imagine love’s our youngest language.Two lexicographers in charcoal suits
must spend their winters dotting parchment
to trace soft plosives, map conspiracies of lips and fingers.
How they’d stammer at the accent of a parting handshake
or tremble at the easy grammar
of heads tipped close. How they’d stand, hawk-eyed
and watch two skaters glide, poised to catch the syntax of their dance.
And like the fullest dictionaries, their books fall short.
They pause in the kitchen, stall over ritual tea.
They face each other speechless
and turn out pockets for the glance translated,
find nothing but ancient small change
shabby with a tender long since cast away.
© 2008, Helen Mort
Publisher: First published on PIW,
Publisher: First published on PIW,
Helen Mort
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1985)
Helen Mort was born in Sheffield in 1985. As a child, she loved language in general and poetry in particular and can’t remember a time when she wasn’t trying to write poetry, including dictating “an incoherent poem about trains” to her mum whilst at primary school. Although “not sure where the urge to write came from”, the sounds of words entranced her. She particularly delighted in “the way so...
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AN EDITOR\'S PREFACE TO THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE (VOLUME 3)
Imagine love’s our youngest language.Two lexicographers in charcoal suits
must spend their winters dotting parchment
to trace soft plosives, map conspiracies of lips and fingers.
How they’d stammer at the accent of a parting handshake
or tremble at the easy grammar
of heads tipped close. How they’d stand, hawk-eyed
and watch two skaters glide, poised to catch the syntax of their dance.
And like the fullest dictionaries, their books fall short.
They pause in the kitchen, stall over ritual tea.
They face each other speechless
and turn out pockets for the glance translated,
find nothing but ancient small change
shabby with a tender long since cast away.
AN EDITOR\'S PREFACE TO THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE (VOLUME 3)
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