Anna
For Anna Akhmatova


 
Month after month
she stands with the other mothers
 
outside the prison’s red walls
waiting for one word of news.
 
A woman with blue lips looks her way,
asks ‘Can you describe this?’
 
Her words flicker like lamplight
through mist shrouding the Neva.
 
All she has is one coat, a hat,
a suitcase filled with poems.

Penelope Howarth
 
If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Penelope Howarth would be pleased to hear them.