A Gentlewoman
She throws a shadow on the morning
Glories in her flower bed
Bends to yank the fullest life
Out of land she names as dirt
Places every stalk inside a swinging basket
Pall-beared on her arm
Smiling at this murderation as the crows
Stare down knowing she’s their kind
When she stamps the blighted roses
Till their colours scream
Walks triumphant to the house
Puts the dead to stand in glass
Jenny Mitchell
Jenny Mitchell is joint winner of the Geoff Stevens’ Memorial Poetry Prize 2019, and winner of the Fosseway Poetry Competition 2020. She was shortlisted for the Oxford Brookes Poetry Competition 2019, and has been placed/commended in several others. She’s been published in The Rialto, The Interpreter’s House, Under the Radar etc. Work is forthcoming in Poetry Birmingham and The African and Black Diaspora International Journal.
A debut collection, Her Lost Language, was selected as one of 44 Poetry Books of 2019
(Poetry Wales).
Twitter @jennymitchellgo