MARIANNE BURTON

Winter Arriving Early

A cataract has glazed the eye of the glass we abandoned in the garden overnight:

I trace the crackling of claret with my finger and poke it through to the lees.

The lake itself sports a monocle, forcing the swans to stand bent and humbled on the grass,

while orange blocks of carp race under our pond, bathers behind frosted glass.

I heat a Le Creuset pan and rest it on the ice so the fish can breathe.

At the white circle’s edge their lips break the surface mouthing grace.

Marianne Burton’s poetry has featured in the Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Wales, Poetry London, Poetry Ireland Review, Texas Poetry Review and on BBC Radio Four’s Poetry Please, as well as on the US website Poetry Daily. She has won prizes in Mslexia, TLS, Edwin Morgan, Bridport, and Cardiff International poetry competitions. Her pamphlet The Devil’s Cut was a Poetry Book Society choice. Her first full collection, Songs of the Inarticulate, is due next year from Seren.

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