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Description
Jennifer Copley lives in Barrow-in-Furness in her grandmother’s house, a large draughty Victorian pile that has informed much of her poetry. She is the author of three full collections, but she also favours pamphlets for certain sets of poems (this is her second from HappenStance; the first is long sold out).
Some Couples evokes the lost and found, the ordinary and the wayward. It penetrates walls and windows, and goes unerringly for the heart.
At Furness General
Mr and Mrs Andrews died last Tuesday
at opposite ends of the hospital,
he, of cancer; she, a stroke
and I wondered
how Bob and Nora, whispering to each other
through the walls, their spitty breath
going up and down the corridors,
had decided on what day they would do this—
not on a Sunday when their daughter visited,
or a Thursday when their neighbour came;
best, Tuesday after tea, when it was fairly quiet—
and how they must have longed to lie
just one more time together, back to back,
warm buttocks touching.
