for Anne Cluysenaar, 1936-2014
Like a drop of blood
a gold ring dropped from my finger –
it had a ruby stone,
hence the blood image I used.
In loss, even of a ring,
blood drains from the heart,
even a possession
leaves us like a friend.
“Are you not writing still?â€
I refuse to believe that you
are not alive and that my ring
is not on a living hand.
Did it drop on the street
or roll against some skirting board?
Will its gold gleam upwards
and catch someone’s eye?
My ring still runs in my veins,
the stone a good strong ruby,
someone else now has it,
and my friend I keep secure.
© Dilys Wood
Picture 13419431, Mary Evans / Manuel Cohen
Dilys Wood founded Second Light Network of Women Poets in 1994. Her collections are Women Come to a Death (Katabasis, 1997) and Antarctica (Greendale Press, 2008). She has co-edited Second Light’s ARTEMISpoetry and the following anthologies of women’s poetry: Fanfare (2015), Her Wings of Glass (2014), Images of Women (Arrowhead Press, in association with Second Light, 2006), My Mother Threw Knives (Second Light Publications, 2006), Making Worlds (Headland with Second Light, 2003) and Parents (Enitharmon Press, 2000). ARTEMISpoetry is a bi-annual poetry magazine in which all poetry, reviews and articles are by women solely concerned with women’s poetry.
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