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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
 

The tin soldier


On the night of her marriage, she presses
her cold forehead against her bridegroom’s cheek

as they look through the window over golden city spires
that glow under sunset like the dream of a promise.

Looking into the fall of darkness is like gazing
into a shroud: a woman veiled white like a bride

and black in the Spanish lace of a mourner,
with a face underneath of plaster and porcelain.

Lately she finds that her head will not fit the pillow
when she lies in bed at her bridegroom’s side,

because the room is small and flickers by candlelight
and the air is thick with the taste of molten metal.

She still remembers the stories of her childhood
and if she is the ballerina, fashioned in paper,

self-consuming by flame, then he must be the tin soldier,
fighting flood, fear, appetite to carry home his white-hot heart.