My newly single friend has spent the day at a museum
she tells me, opening another bottle.
She talks about paintings of women weeping
at the dark edge of water; about corsets of pink silk
where tiny metal acrobats swing
on tightened ribs, breast bound;
about the yellow crust of clotted cream in the tearoom.
There are knives there from Italy, she says,
hundreds of years old. The blades are etched with music,
each a different harmony. No one knows who made them.
We drink. Her eyes remain steadfastly dry.
Next morning she is singing
in the kitchen when I wake,
lifting golden curls from the butter dish,
voice sharp enough to cut the light into the sky.
…
Jen Feroze lives by the sea with her husband and two small sleep thieves. Her work has appeared in Capsule Stories, The Madrigal and The 6ress, among others. She was highly commended in the inaugural Spelt magazine competition. Her first collection, The Colour of Hope, was published in 2020.
atriumpoetry.com 