Maureen Jivani’s poems have appeared in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, New Zealand and Australia both online and in print magazines including Frogmore Papers, The Glasgow Review, Magma, nthposition, Orbis, The Rialto, Seam, Smiths Knoll, and The Wolf. Her first full collection of poems, Insensible Heart, is available from Mulfran Press. See’s also been featured at Peony Moon.
He balances his Gladstone amongst her heaps of Time, National Geographic, Liberator, asks, ‘How do you feel?’
She’s thinking, I like the blackness of the print,
finding insurgency at my wrists, numbness at the tips
of my index fingers, how images sometimes centre
themselves inside my palms, a peace demonstration
in Hyde Park, a black Raleigh bicycle propped against a rail,
the politician’s clenched fist, faces of the dead, or
bluebell woods…
He examines her study, the paper hands
which she faithfully cut
and stuck to the floors, walls, ceilings and panes.
Maureen Jivani lives in Surrey England and has worked for the National Health Service for over twenty-five years. She has a pamphlet (chapbook) and a full collection of poems out with Mulfran Press.
Boris married Maria, the butcher’s widow, on a bright day last December. It was a small affair. Although the villagers were respectful of Boris’s profession many were still reeling from the butcher’s death at thirty-two. He was too young for a heart-attack, although Boris had signed the death certificate himself.
Maria had married the butcher on a chilly day last May. It was a grand affair. The ladies adored the butcher for his nutritious sweet sausages and the men were grateful for his unrelenting generosity during the recession. Women had deprived their families of breakfast eggs for months, in order to present the happy couple with a giant cake. Men had gone willingly without ale for a week.
On the night of their honeymoon, the butcher urged his young wife to consider starting a family. Maria pulled the candlewick bedspread over her shoulders and looked at him with such child-like intensity that he felt ashamed.
The next day Maria cut her hair short, locked away her treasured make-up and took to wearing ankle socks. The butcher came back that evening to no supper, and finding her curled on the sofa like a stray kitten, gasped, ‘My god Maria!’
When Boris arrived and had thoroughly examined Maria in the privacy of the marital bed, he reassured the butcher that ‘such regressions into childhood were not uncommon in young brides,’ and ‘that Maria needed only daily counselling sessions with him to resolve the matter.’ The butcher wept as Boris shrugged and said, ‘six months’.
After the first session Maria improved. She discarded the socks, glossed her lips, and her cheeks took on a healthy glow. She began to cook her husband the hearty meals she had promised before they were married, and at night she would whisper ‘soon, my love, soon.’
Qarrtsiluni offers electronic delivery of original poetry, prose, and art, organized into regular, themed issues, with a new post every weekday. You can find us wherever you go: email and IM, iTunes, feed readers, sometimes even print. Read more...
Congrats to qarrtsiluni authors Sarah Busse and Wendy Vardaman @wendylvardaman for their appointment as poets laureate of Madison, WI. · 4 months ago
Yesterday the last post in our Worship issue; today we begin the Imitation issue. Follow by email & never miss a post. qarrtsiluni.com · 4 months ago
Copyright Notice
All copyrights are retained by the original authors and artists (with the exception of one-time anthology rights, as described on the Guidelines page). We will gladly forward requests for republication, and would appreciate a link back to qarrtsiluni in return.
