Mslexia

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New Writing

Even Michelangelo made, maybe, the odd slip.
To chip, say, a cheek, brought some student girl or boy
with a fingertip of beeswax, smoothing it in,
soothing with marble dust, polishing to a finish.
But a work perfect in completion
without wax, was sine cera. Sincere.

In High-Dependency, I cushioned your hushed white foot
until the beat gurgled back, and ankle, instep, and finally all five toes
glowed roseate, and they took you away
to the sculptors of bypass and artery.
Never was a foot so beautiful, or sincerity so chill,
my warming, healing love.

FRANCES CORKEY THOMPSON is 68 and lives in Devon. She writes best in the morning after at least one cup of tea. Her poems have appeared in Oxford Poets 2007 and she has published a chapbook, The Long Acre. A retired lecturer, she is now a practising grandmother, which is delightful and distracting. She gained distinction in her Poetry MA after retiring, and is inspired by childhood memories, her father’s papers (he was a missionary in China), and writing formal letters to her mother in Ireland. She writes on a laptop on an oval pedestal table owned by her mother and grandmother.

This poem is published, with all the other winners of the 2012 Mslexia Poetry Competition, in issue 55 of Mslexia. For the latest on the writing world, publishing and creativity subscribe now. To sample more Mslexia features or to find out about the latest issue click here.