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A new poem from Kate Behrens ~ Your Sisterʼs Tapestry Cushion

Your Sisterʼs Tapestry Cushion
i.m of my grandmother, ʽCullerʼ and her sister, Den, daughters of a painter-mother.

In this view
weft-faced yews (Ucello darks)
strew the escarpmentʼs
grey-green, mint, plaster, white.

Her mind was stitched
into yours, yours into mine
(those colours spoke like a mother tongue).

From a distance, itʼs leaping wildness,
the in/out of things
sewn up. Shadow and lightness.

Weʼd sit on your sofa in drifts
of Silk Cut smoke, Ma Griffe.
Tonal shifts made patterns

to lean on, with the thick curtains
drawn on blue cedars.

~

Kate Behrens’ most recent collection is Penumbra, published by Two Rivers Press in January 2019. It follows on from her first collection, The Beholder (2012), and Man with Bombe Alaska (2016). Other poems have appeared in MslexiaBlackbox ManifoldStandThe High Window, Reading Universityʼs Creative Arts Anthologies, Poetry Salzburg ReviewWild CourtNoonThe Arts of Peace (Two Rivers Press) and as Oxford Brookesʼ Poem of the Week.

Read more about Kate’s poetry here.

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