Jeff Skinner – No End of Blue Things

No End of Blue Things

The bone china mug you drank from every morning
we’ve retired like a shirt;

an exhibition of blouses, perfume-faint,
hung behind a door I dare not open.

For coastal walks a darker coat,
the cursive waves, more grey than blue.

Allotment skies in April, May,
your riderless bike, desolate tools.

Archived to the loft, decorations nest in boxes:
each Christmas brought a new one for the girls.

By your bedside cabinet
a special collection of books; silver chain

meandering as a river from a plane,
icon of phone;

and a late portrait, a gift
from the gallery our lives curate:

last holiday, you’re toying
with an ice cream. Soon we’ll be listening

to world music, water songs of harp and kora,
the lit cathedral swimming.

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Jeff Skinner’s poems have appeared in the Morning Star, the Stare’s Nest, Crowsfeet, Clear Poetry, Ground Poetry, The Open Mouse , Poetry Space, Poetry News, Prole, and on a Guernsey bus. He was long listed in the Bridport competition in 2012, shortlisted in the 2015 Wells Poetry Competition, and commended in this year’s Ver and Poetry Space competitions. He reads occasionally with Exeter Poets Uncut.

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