{"id":12601,"date":"2024-11-26T19:36:17","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T18:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12601"},"modified":"2024-11-27T11:50:49","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T10:50:49","slug":"3-poems-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12601","title":{"rendered":"2 poems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Flower-Six-e1732646125503.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"443\" \/><br \/><span style=\"font-size: 12px;\">Image: \u00a9 Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\">Rialto Blues<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In May I take the train from Genoa to Venezia Santa Lucia, but I am late, and see you before you see me, standing on the bridge, face hard as Istrian stone. What irony that we should reunite in Venice with its web of artifice\u2014wrecked by seawater, by neglect, and the constant threat of flood. After all, there is no way to reverse damage once rot sets in; or stave off deterioration with a belated anniversary weekend. No one says the word <em>affair<\/em>. After night litanies of reconfigured vows, near touch and then retraction, our union is fragile as a barrel jellyfish in a vaporetto\u2019s wake. All good intentions to preserve this listed structure, swept into the <em>acqua alta.<\/em> I now know that without romance, peeling frescos merely hide the damp and stucco frames swing open to a bird-shit speckled mesh. Without two lovers entwined, a claw-footed bath\u00a0is just another place to get clean\u2014and we are past all that by now. We dine at Poste Vecie and <em>Recioto<\/em> helps to paper cracks while the city holds us dangling in her grip, just above the waterline. Next day, on Murano the\u00a0<em>garzonetto<\/em>\u00a0cradle crystal in their hands, a centuries-old display of quartz\u00a0clowned from vitreous paste. But we sit politely apart as the mineral glass is blown, then pick out glassware for a dinner party\u00a0we will never throw at home. Later, I photograph the heavy orange sun, and we stroll the Lido,\u00a0stiff arms linked;\u00a0two strangers with matching Tiffany rings, hearts sinking fast. At dawn, I smoke alone and watch them collect the trash\u00a0behind Rialto market. While tourists take the first dewed seats on gondolas, a quartet plays Vivaldi and sonic joy reverberates, but without romance, there is no safe foothold,\u00a0no great philanthropic fund. We drag our wheelie bags up limestone steps that could be leading anywhere, overflowing with the knowledge that we cannot sustain the weight of what we tried to build, understanding there is no more time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\"><strong>Grazier\u2019s Warning<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>With her yellowing wool socket sealed shut,<br \/>eyeball snatched as a baby by greedy crows\u2014<br \/>she is no slower than the rest. Lucky really, to survive<br \/>the sudden cold snap which followed her birth.<br \/>It was an unusual spring, more mutable than predicted<br \/>and the others\u2014hours younger, days older, were frozen<br \/>to their waists, still buried half inside their mothers.<br \/>That exacting frost ensured the bodies lay preserved<br \/>like mummies in the top field, faces blank as normal.<br \/>What it must be to choose? Labour indoors, the hay shed,<br \/>new life coaxed by blue-gloved hands? Or\u2014far away<br \/>from the farmhouse and its cosy plumes, wall eyes<br \/>staring into the green belt, dimly aware of the pressure<br \/>of new hooves encased in jelly, bearing down.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>____<\/p>\n<p><em>Lucy Holme is a PhD student at UCC. Her work features in PN Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The London Magazine, Wild Court, Southword, Banshee and The Stinging Fly amongst others. She was shortlisted for The London Magazine Poetry Award, The Brotherton Prize, The Mairt\u00edn Crawford Award and won the C\u00fairt New Writing Prize for poetry 2024. Her debut chapbook, Temporary Stasis, (Broken Sleep 2022) was shortlisted for The Patrick Kavanagh Award. A nonfiction essay collection, Blue Diagonals, is forthcoming from Broken Sleep in September 2024.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image: \u00a9 Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester Rialto Blues In May I take the train from Genoa to Venezia Santa Lucia, but I am late, and see you before you see me, standing on the bridge, face hard as Istrian stone. What irony that we should reunite in Venice with its web of artifice\u2014wrecked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":390,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[376,425,428],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.2.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>2 poems - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12601\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2 poems - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Image: \u00a9 Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester Rialto Blues In May I take the train from Genoa to Venezia Santa Lucia, but I am late, and see you before you see me, standing on the bridge, face hard as Istrian stone. What irony that we should reunite in Venice with its web of artifice\u2014wrecked [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12601\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-11-26T18:36:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-11-27T10:50:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Flower-Six-e1732646125503.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lucy Holme\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lucy Holme\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12601\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12601\",\"name\":\"2 poems - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2024-11-26T18:36:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-11-27T10:50:49+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/99113fe868087b90d57c423d7aef22a9\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12601#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12601\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12601#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"2 poems\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/99113fe868087b90d57c423d7aef22a9\",\"name\":\"Lucy Holme\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"Lucy Holme\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?author=390\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"2 poems - The Manchester Review","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12601","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"2 poems - The Manchester Review","og_description":"Image: \u00a9 Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester Rialto Blues In May I take the train from Genoa to Venezia Santa Lucia, but I am late, and see you before you see me, standing on the bridge, face hard as Istrian stone. 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