share


The Humming Lady

The humming lady arrives

in a smiling orange smock

and orders from the waiter

a plate of overripe oranges,

peeling off the snowwebs

into a red-blanketed napkin.

She hums a centuries-old

Romany tune, which I half-

recognise as the fugue to

my own death (and so it

must be her own death).

Through orange mist and

beneath a brown-greying

fringe, she appears to half-

recognise both of our lives

and turns (out of politeness?)

towards an invisible volta.

Clear pearl of eye where

I thank smilingly, pleased

at the new tempo, its cheer

turbinal about the room,

unsealed maternally from

the willow of her throat.  


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

James Byrne’s most recent collection, Blood/Sugar was published by Arc in 2009. Bones Will Crow: 15 Contemporary Burmese Poets (June 2012), is co-edited with ko ko thett and is the first anthology of Burmese poetry to be published in the West. Byrne is editor of The Wolf and co-editor of Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century (Bloodaxe, 2009). His poems have been translated into languages including Arabic and Burmese.  

READ NEXT

Art

Issue No. 2

Sri Lankan Contemporary Art

Josephine Breese

Art

Issue No. 2

Sri Lanka has developed a thriving, vital contemporary art scene over the past twenty years. New artists are emerging...

fiction

January 2014

Son of Man

Yi Mun-yol

TR. Brother Anthony of Taizé

fiction

January 2014

Rain falling onto thick layers of accumulated dust had left the windows of the criminal investigations office so mottled...

poetry

April 2012

The Disappearance

Dana Goodyear

poetry

April 2012

A yellow veil dropped down at evening, and when it lifted everyone was gone. Good mothers fled their young...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required