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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
 

Tin solder


They are called church keys, loop-handled and slot-eyed;
one tin-lead tear fixes each where hot iron touches.

She sits to work. Bunsen burners slow-hiss, and out in the bay
a high tongue of flame flowers from the gas-plant.

A hard case, he left in the night without warning, no softening
after all that shouting.

She glances between keys and tins. The day intensifies
its noon of sardines, solder, rosewater and sweat. She works,

minding how lips wear gilt on chalice rims
and seraphim in candlelight are packed in oil, laid

close as lovers’ souls, head to tail, locked reliquaries of foil
and vertebrae of salt lace in pink driftwood flesh.

She knows a kind of metal rose is rolled
from every opened lid, a tight-wound, sharp-edged spring.

After the siren she’ll find him. Tomorrow’s fleet will spew
the catch, and she will fix a key to every tin.