Philip Quinlan is the author of a chapbook, Head Lands (White Violet Press, 2012). He received nominations, in 2011, for both The Best of the Net and Pushcart. His work has appeared in: The Flea, The Chimaera, Lucid Rhythms, Lilt, Soundzine, Numinous, The Avatar Review, The Centrifugal Eye, Sea Stories, Shit Creek Review, Shot Glass Journal, Snakeskin, Victorian Violet Press, Whale Sound, Studio 360, In Stereo Press, The Hypertexts, Lighten Up Online, Antiphon, Raintown Review, Kin, Unsplendid, and New Trad Journal. He is also co-editor, with Ann Drysdale, of Angle Journal of Poetry in English, www.anglepoetry.co.uk. He lives in the UK.

Personal website: www.theverbfori.co.uk

Philip Quinlan

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A Game of Graces

Ekphrasis on a Suffolk garden

Three graces–one has turned away–
have cast a charm on this one day
with nakedness and innocence,
all fluid form with absent faces.
Two herons play at changing places,
throw and catch their eloquence.

The sun, through pines, lights golden crab;
I, like the herons, take a stab
at making something make some sense:
How goes repose with happenstance?

Sit by me, listen while I say
my peace on this one golden day:
stick with this folly, two rings true,
and we shall play at graces too.