Currency of the time by Mary Gilonne

Arts Richmond

Online - 30 September 2020

Give me the polished porcelain of cowrie shells,

their thickened puckered lips, a pursing count

of bartered goods.

Let me feel that pocketed smooth ellipse unfold,

the daintiness of their teeth that nip and slip

before you buy.

Read me those hungry lines of coffeed script,

the leopard spots that gloss with buff and cream

your desiring hand.

Thread me a reef of leaving, lagoon my mother’s eyes,

before my skin wrecks in your tallying, each bone

summed in some sea.

from ABOUT TIME, the 2019 anthology of shortlisted entries from The Roger McGough Poetry Prize. Copies of this Anthology can be purchased for £5 including P&P from Arts Richmond.