Poem
Jane Yeh
THE REVENGER\'S TRAGEDY
THE REVENGER\'S TRAGEDY
THE REVENGER\'S TRAGEDY
You don’t return my calls. In a month of missing daysEverything thwarts me, even the curls of my hair freeze;
My skin sheds, leaving flakes on my wool sweater. We are erratic
Both, changing with the weather, but you think of it
As an astronomical progression. Last year you called me
Your little sunflower. Eleven blizzards later I think of how
To get you: calculating mercury, sighting along constellations,
Rehearsing the lines of a paid assassin—not know me, my Lord?
You cannot choose! I bide time,
Hoarse-tongued and blue as poison, the double
Line of my eyes gone to slits. I hate like a tooth hurts,
At the root. I will startle the bones
From their sockets, they will crack like glass
And catch in your throat. I will dazzle
Your heart from its cage. The lungs will knock and clap
Together in the empty place. The applause will make you rattle.
© 2005, Jane Yeh
From: Marabou
Publisher: Carcanet, Manchester
From: Marabou
Publisher: Carcanet, Manchester
Jane Yeh
(United States of America, 1971)
With just two collections, Jane Yeh has established herself in the UK poetry world as an assured, witty, linguistically adept magpie. Taking her subjects from almost anywhere, her poems explore what identity means in a world of appearances. Paintings, robots, animals – even the owl who was chosen to play the owl in the Harry Potter movie – show us facets of ourselves.
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THE REVENGER\'S TRAGEDY
You don’t return my calls. In a month of missing daysEverything thwarts me, even the curls of my hair freeze;
My skin sheds, leaving flakes on my wool sweater. We are erratic
Both, changing with the weather, but you think of it
As an astronomical progression. Last year you called me
Your little sunflower. Eleven blizzards later I think of how
To get you: calculating mercury, sighting along constellations,
Rehearsing the lines of a paid assassin—not know me, my Lord?
You cannot choose! I bide time,
Hoarse-tongued and blue as poison, the double
Line of my eyes gone to slits. I hate like a tooth hurts,
At the root. I will startle the bones
From their sockets, they will crack like glass
And catch in your throat. I will dazzle
Your heart from its cage. The lungs will knock and clap
Together in the empty place. The applause will make you rattle.
From: Marabou
THE REVENGER\'S TRAGEDY
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