This poem is taken from PN Review 270, Volume 49 Number 4, March - April 2023.
Meeting Mr Lowry
after a poem by Sinéad Morrissey
1970 – the city
was scrubbing off soot, turning
its back-to-backs to rubble
and gradually receding from his paintings.
A pretty colleague ventured with me
to Mottram in Longendale.
He was large but bird-like,
a dark-suited stork –
quizzical movements of the head,
sharp eyes, unexpected:
when Sandra admired a picture
he immediately offered it to her.
Knowing her museum ethics,
she gave a gracious no
to the small painting of the sea –
empty, white and lonely –
and it stayed on his mantelpiece.
...
was scrubbing off soot, turning
its back-to-backs to rubble
and gradually receding from his paintings.
A pretty colleague ventured with me
to Mottram in Longendale.
He was large but bird-like,
a dark-suited stork –
quizzical movements of the head,
sharp eyes, unexpected:
when Sandra admired a picture
he immediately offered it to her.
Knowing her museum ethics,
she gave a gracious no
to the small painting of the sea –
empty, white and lonely –
and it stayed on his mantelpiece.
...
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