Three Poems by Jenny King

PN Review 280, November - December 2024

Pebble

In the photo I am sitting on a beach,

my hands held wide at shoulder height.

I’m looking up –

the pebble I’ve thrown pauses above my head.

My upturned face shows I expect it back

like a dog with a stick.

Pebble, child, beach are caught in a moment’s light.

What runs through my head?

The sea is behind me. Under my spread legs

is shingle and over my shoulder a dark rock.

A green seaweed smell leaks out of the picture

into this quiet room

as if time had stopped, the pebble stuck in the air.

But the child on the beach has no doubts

and waits with trusting hands

for the gift to fall.

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‘Somewhere’

Somewhere

a woman runs a ribbon through her fingers

and feels the texture and the flow.

Remembering its first owner

she folds it neatly, puts it away

into her oddments basket.

A day, a month, for years the dead

linger among us in their bits and pieces.


Three Horses

Today they are clustered together.

Summer is gone but their field is full of light

and the grass is still growing.

They are sharing the last warmth.

They don’t spread themselves out

or stray any more into the field corners

but seek the comfort of this tree

and one another.

They droop their heads, tilt a hoof.

Autumn is coming, they know it

and wait with a tree’s patience

for the seasons to change and change again.

For us too things are different now.

I have seen my favourite gloves on the high shelf,

the ones with black fur on the wrist.

Soon I’ll ask you to reach them down.

We walk in the late sun

talking about the week that’s gone, the one to come.

Winter hovers in the back of our thoughts.

As to next year, let’s put our heads together.

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These poems by Jenny King are taken from PN Review 280, November - December 2024. Further contributions from King are available in the archive to paying subscribers, as well as more poetry, features, reviews and reports from across the back catalogue. To read the editorial from this issue, head to the Carcanet Substack at the link below.

PN Review 280: Editorial