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Likestarlings is a place for talking in poems. We pair poets with poets and they write a sequence of six new works by responding in turn to one another. Our palaver blog goes beyond poetry to discuss collaboration in theory and in practice. Please take a look, and feel free to add comments, opinions and suggestions here. Read poems here
 

Two Thousand and Nine

 

1895 in sandstone over the door

like a tick buried in the skin

it is not so very long ago, after all

these doors can pass a 6ft man, no timber

over-head, all walls are level-straight

 

to share 6 rooms, 7 windows

(how many bricks?)

creaks on the stair, bubbles in the glass

familiar to someone else. I tell you this.

You think me afraid of shadows, afraid of stories

that can’t be told, think it an excuse

to leave these piled-four-walls

 

Outside I look up at the date

days and rain rubbing away,

put my ear against the stone

cheek to cold, mouth to grit

– whispers are growing faint.