Poem Beginning with a Misquotation by David Wheatley

for Sinéad Morrissey

The middle stretch is good for poets, said
MacNeice. The shambles of youth
a merciful blur and the rigmarole
of dissolution still to come, here is
routine raised to the artform of
the infinite heavenly now – here

the work email answered on receipt
and the new poem pocketed like
a cheque in the post. But are all
heavens equal, Dante wondered,
asking Piccarda Donati how she felt
shunted off to the furthest suburb

of paradise. And how durable is that
now, it strikes me, suddenly tired
of my emails and noticing that last cheque
has bounced. MacNeice’s middle stretch
was really the end, with after that less
a late stretch than an already-too-late.

To want otherwise is blasphemy, replies
Piccarda, the question makes no sense.
Well you stay here then, Dante thinks,
leaving her to it, but happy, stuck
with it now, that bliss, untold lashings
of it endlessly coming her way.

From: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/poem-beginning-with-a-misquotation/

Date: 2022

By: David Wheatley (1970- )