Measurements – Stephen Bone

Measurements

Bold regency stripe
gave way to a cabbage rose
extravaganza,

which in turn hid
a tangle of fifties’
geometrics.

Our arms aching
as we scraped back
the decades,

with their buried clues,
until at last, exhausted,
we exposed the final layer

and the faint but readable
name of Ben, his height and age
written out in blue crayon

each third of June, until
after nineteen-forty, reaching
five foot five, tall for ten,

his measurements
stop their climb up
the sickly yellow wall.

…

Stephen Bone’s latest pamphlet, Plainsong ( Indigo Dreams ) appeared in 2018. A micro-pamphlet due from Hedgehog Press in 2020. Most recent work in magazines include, Agenda online, Black Bough Poetry, Finished Creatures, London grip, Morphrog, Shotglass, The Frogmore Papers.