What’s on Martin Malone’s doormat?

TROUVÉ

I prise open a new year at Easter
with the big key to my green front door.

There, on the floor of the light-slatted
kitchen, a one-word note from Autumn.

Clenched in the yellow palm of dusted leaf,
your parting shot is my Spring greeting.

I throw wide the shutters, recreate the room
and stoop to pick up the twist, retrieve the script.
   

First published in ‘The Waiting Hillside’ (Templar 2011).    
 
 
Martin Malone is a UK based poet whose recent prizes include the 2011 Straid Poetry Award for new collections, the 2012 Mirehouse and the 2011 Wivenhoe Poetry Prizes. Runner-up in the 2013 Poetry School Pamphlet Competition, he was also short-listed in the 2012 Bridport Prize, 2011 Mirehouse Poetry Competition and the 2011 Torbay Poetry and 2010 Yorkshire Open Poetry competitions. Martin is undertaking practice-led research for a Ph.D in Poetry at Sheffield University.