3 June 2020

The Anthropocene

A new poem from Pascale Petit.

By Pascale Petit

A boy paddles in the sea on Saltdean beach near Brighton on the south coast of England on June 2, 2020 following a further relaxation of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 lockdown rules. - Suspected and confirmed cases of deaths from the coronavirus outbreak in Britain have risen to 48,000, according to official data published Tuesday. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP) (Photo by GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images)

A bride wears a train
of three thousand
peacock plumes

She walks down the aisle
like a planet
trailing her seas

every wave an eye
shivering with the memory
of the display

how the trees turned
to watch as the bird
raised the fan of his tail –

emerald forests
bronze atolls
lapis islands

every eye
a storm
held in abeyance

Pascale Petit is a French-born British poet. Her seventh book, Mama Amazonica, won the 2018 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. Tiger Girl (Bloodaxe) is due to be published in September 2020.

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This article appears in the 03 Jun 2020 issue of the New Statesman, We can't breathe

Pascale Petit

Pascale Petit is the author of eight collections of poetry, including “Mama Amazonica” (Bloodaxe, 2017), which won the Ondaatje Prize and the inaugural Laurel Prize.