His Majesty would like
To be rid of his wife -
No need for angels,
But of crooked tales
And minds which crawl backwards
To and fro, over the past.
…
Touch him, touch a man
Touch him not, for he is none -
Take out the book,
Wake up the crows,
Unmake the queen.
The Journal is a section where I post weekly poems responding to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy. Here’s last week’s edition: