I said to the moon, ‘You know nothing’.



We stand at the shore,
our toes foam with blue ink.
I dive for oysters, my graceless feet
a mermaid’s tail.
I anoint your milky orbs with pearls.

Your eyes are moonstones,
smile, a crescent moon.
You are the lighthouse; I am a moth
attracted to your light.

I stutter constellations;
Cassiopeia trips over my tongue.
A Mirrorball of stars ricochets from
the sunburst of your song.

The sea makes screen prints;
sells them to tourists drinking tears
from champagne flutes.
They cling to glaciers;
carve ice sculptures of love lost.

Our skeletons are xylophones.
We play all the songs —
they are lifelines on our palms.
I do not believe in God,
but we kiss and the universe is ours.

We are stardust,
I write sonnets,
You sing psalms


©2024 Sarah Drury



Glass

My husband passed away 12 years ago, which affected me deeply for a long time. I have come to terms with his death, which was traumatic. I wrote this poem as a tribute to our love.

GLASS


You hold me, I am porcelain. 
I am chipped in places, but not broken.
You like the chinks and cracks, 
they let hope shine in. 

Our lips meet in earthshine, 
until the moon’s shadow dances 
at my throat.

Your hands, they are granite, 
they are feathers.
I like the crowns of thorns 
you wear upon your palms. 

They make me bleed 
when you place
them on my breasts.
I know we are living
amongst the dying.

I am Venus, you create me. 
You take me from my abstract world 
and paint me into starry skies 
above the Rhone.

Your kind hands model the widow 
from the girl. You carve me 
out of glass to see 
if this heart still beats –

if it is still yours.


Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022

Glass Jar

GLASS JAR

Sometimes I wish that
hearts were like spiders,
and I could trap yours
in a pretty glass jar.
I would gaze all day,
contemplating reasons you should stay,
and we would sleep silently together,
under a duvet of opalescent stars.

Arachnids move so fast.
And I don’t want you to
move at all.
I am so tired of loving from a distance.
You are oblivious to the longing
in the rise and fall
of my half heart hope.
I want to gaze in awe.
As you weave your spun silk webs,
to grace the gardens of my metaphor.
Mine only.

I would covet your little glass house,
cup my loving hands around the
fragile glass.
Sense the lukewarm flesh and bones
of my unrequited, taboo lass.
No escaping my love,
in your little, crystal prison.
The fireflies would cry by the dark
of the night,
and the moon would whisper secrets,
when the trusting sun had risen,
and no-one would hear,
but the universe would listen.
And our hearts.

Sarah Drury