i.m. John Martin
Cherryless orchards uncoil to winter.
Shanties rank with whitefish, the river’s
creaky docks. He knew every trap-net tug
by their wakes: long, dwindling epilogues
written across the lake. He would smile,
Ohio State-red dimples below calm
esquire’s eyes, watching through the window
their leeward work. His error and wound:
Leelanau was ‘delight of life’… He half-
laughed knowing how often lake turns to lack
and takes after the sky after the sky turns grey,
after the Great Lake freighters ply
January, whose second, greater blank
outgrew the pane in which he saw himself.
Taylor Strickland is an American poet based in Glasgow. His pamphlet “Commonplace Book” will be published by Broken Sleep Books in October
[See also: The NS Poem: Floral Tribute]
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This article appears in the 28 Sep 2022 issue of the New Statesman, The Truss Delusion