SOME COUPLES − Jennifer Copley

9781910131374
£ 5.00 each

Jennifer Copley lives in Barrow-in-Furness in her grandmother’s house, a large draughty Victorian pile that has informed much of her poetry. She is the author of three full collections, but she also favours pamphlets for certain sets of poems (this is her second from HappenStance; the first is long sold out). 

Some Couples evokes the lost and found, the ordinary and the wayward. It penetrates walls and windows, and goes unerringly for the heart. 

At Furness General

Mr and Mrs Andrews died last Tuesday 
at opposite ends of the hospital,
he, of cancer; she, a stroke 
and I wondered 
how Bob and Nora, whispering to each other 
through the walls, their spitty breath
going up and down the corridors,
had decided on what day they would do this—

not on a Sunday when their daughter visited,
or a Thursday when their neighbour came; 
best, Tuesday after tea, when it was fairly quiet— 

and how they must have longed to lie 
just one more time together, back to back,
warm buttocks touching.