Dead End Street

“we had to have it

we got it”

—Ted Hughes,

“9 Willow Street,”

Birthday Letters

Dead End Street—

My poetical address

Number nine—

Even better

It confirmed that—

I’d simply had it

Dead End poet—

9 Willow Street North Tawton

By the yawning Taw River—

Beyond my New England home

Here at my Elm desk—

Ear-plugs and the cliff's edge

Jung’s dreadful nigredo—

It had its eye out for me

It folded its bat wing—

Blackness all around me

Enclosing me, making—

My heart jump in my ribs

I was grabbing at straws—

Anything to get away

Anything to get away—

From marriage & motherhood

As well as from Olwyn—

Aurelia and Big Daddy back home

Pacing the parquet—

Ending up with nothing

Never mind the blockage—

Ariel still in the wings

Snarke