Kate Clanchy Poems

Now I sit my child on the jut
of my hip, and take
his weight with the curve
...

I hadn't met his kind before.
His misericord face - really,
like a joke on his father - blurred
as if from years of polish;
...

Here, I should surely think of home -
my country and the neat steep town
where I grew up: its banks of cloud,
the winds and changing, stagey light,
...

I would have skipped the stupid games,
long afternoons spent chilled in goal,
or sleepy, scratching, in deep field,
leapt the sagging fence
...