Striptease

Susan Utting

£6.95
978-1-902382-37-1

"I think writing a poem is like taking off your clothes - slowly stripping stuff off till you get down to the real thing - but you don't get arrested for it (mostly)." - Susan Utting

"Beyond the attractions of their sensuous diction her finest poems accomplish a strikingly steady focus, both compassionate and uncompromising" - Elizabeth Garrett

Orange

The memory of orange is more neon-tangerine
than retro chic would have it; back then
it zinged, went psychedelic next to purple,
hurt your eyes like Riley's zigzags and those
op-art monochromes made cool by Quant,
Courrèges's blinding white,The Knack and
dash-bright Mondrian. And there was Marilyn
in every colour on the chart and then some,
narrowing her eyes at you, like after-image
after after-image.And now you have to stare
at the light, or knuckle rub your eyes to see
the froth and spangle turn jazz to a vision thing,
to get that dazzle, all the dayglo shimmer,
the back-then shock of flaming orange.