Burning the Directories

 On a pyre, kindled from general rubbish,
 I am burning old phone books.
 The Thompson goes on first,
 a little local conflagration,
 a hundred burning names, five hundred.
 Five white ones go on next,
 opened flat, middle pages crumpled so the flames catch.
 The names blacken and curl,
 a thousand names,
 a hundred thousand.
  
 Seven yellow ones go on next,
 burning stars float up on the smoke,
 pages flick over in the firestorm.
 I watch the names vanish,
 the baker, the hotelier, the musician, the shoe seller.
 Seven tribes of names,
 a thousand thousand names,
 seven thousand thousand names,
 unreadable uncountable names,
 burning.  
 

 
 
 
 The Golden Fawn
  
 Golden
 in the headlights
 a fawn stands transfixed.
 A cousin urges him to cross,
 he stands.
  
 Spotless
 coat luminous.
 His head arrow slender.
 Such a thing cannot exist,
 magic.
  
 Spellbound
 he watches me,
 eyes the colour of amber.
 Tiny feet, like silver shells,
 poised
  
 to run
 into fable.
 He blinked, I blinked.
 Then he vanished deep into
 the wood.
  
 Winter
 road a-glitter.
 All above is starshine.
 On either side dark trees press in.
 Midnight.
  
 Golden,
 coat luminous,
 eyes the colour of amber.
 Then he vanished deep into
 midnight. 

Teresa will only admit to being of pensionable age with 3 grown up children. She was Stamford’s second poet laureate and enjoys supporting local readings and enabling other people to write. She is appearing in Stamford’s Georgian festival in September when her poems will be giving the Georgian servants a voice. Teresa also likes sewing and if you are visiting Stamford Art Centre do visit the Cellar Bar and read extracts of local poets work which she stitched into a wall hanging for the last verse festival.