On the other side of the glass
the garden mimes itself; even the leaves
ripple without a murmur in the breeze.
A question-mark above the grass
betrays a cat, suggests what the cat’s after.
If a sparrow dies
it dies in silence. Passing schoolgirls’ eyes
are full of silent laughter.
Ambulances hee-haw past unheard.
A wheelie-bin that used to mimic thunder
belly-rumbles quietly under
wraps, while overhead
the planes come in, reflect a gleam
of sun, their homing engines nearer than they seem.
About Sue Wicks
Sue Wicks is a British poet, novelist and translator. Her sixth collection,
House of Tongues (Bloodaxe, 2011), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her most recent novel,
A Place to Stop, came out from Salt in 2012 and was a White Review Reading Group choice. Her first book of translations of the French poet Valerie Rouzeau,
Cold Spring in Winter, was shortlisted for the 2010 International Griffin Prize for Poetry and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize and won the Scott Moncrieff Prize. A second book by the same poet,
Talking Vrouz (Arc, 2014), is the PBS Winter 2013-14 Recommended Translation.
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