{"id":4524,"date":"2024-02-14T10:14:58","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T10:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/?page_id=4524"},"modified":"2024-02-14T10:14:58","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T10:14:58","slug":"camille-ralphs-she-learns-to-count","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/poems\/camille-ralphs-she-learns-to-count\/","title":{"rendered":"CAMILLE RALPHS \/ She Learns to Count"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Camille Ralphs<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

She Learns to Count<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

She saw your kindness poke fun at her crying eye just once.<\/p>\r\n

Not more than twice, she watched your honesty swear blind it did not know her.<\/p>\r\n

Three times \u2013 three at most \u2013 she saw your cleverness look doe-eyed at a huckster of the first degree.<\/p>\r\n

It might have been four times she witnessed your good humour screaming like a kettle in her favourite restaurant.<\/p>\r\n

Was it five times she recognised your decency amid the crowd howling for tabloid blood?<\/p>\r\n

There was a sixth occasion, she supposes, when she spotted your ambition on the sofa with a spliff and gaping case of wine.<\/p>\r\n

No way could it be seven times she, shopping with your generosity, paid up with everything she had.<\/p>\r\n

Nor eight times, surely, that she watched your self-control professing palpitations of the heart to someone new!<\/p>\r\n

Nine times … Nine times she did not think she knew, or thought she could not know.<\/p>\r\n

Ten times she heard someone in love with you deny the constitution of your soul.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Camille Ralphs<\/strong> has two published pamphlets, Malkin: An ellegy in 14 spels<\/i> (The Emma Press, 2015) and uplifts & chains<\/i> (If A Leaf Falls Press, 2020), with another forthcoming in 2023. She writes the \u2018Averse Miscellany\u2019 column for Poetry London<\/i>, conducts the \u2018Poem\u2019s Apprentice\u2019 interview series for Poetry Birmingham<\/i> Literary Journal and is Poetry Editor at the TLS<\/i>. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\n

Published in:<\/p>\n\r\n\r\n\r\n