Singing About Melon by Luke Thompson Mary Frances ‘We curled up dejectedly in

‘We curled up dejectedly in the spare wheel of May sixty-eight’

the “Art Deco walkway over the beltline/[ with a] Chain link fence to discourage jumpers

we ask plenty of questions – what makes a poem tick over perfectly

Janne Nummela

Will there be bodies floating under the plastic pool-cover

Singing About Melon by Luke Thompson Mary Frances ‘We curled up dejectedly inSinging About Melon opens with a call for silence: Silenzio. This is the self defeating shout of the guards in the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi, where several of the poems are placed. It is a call that echoes through Luke Thompsons first collection, playing with sense and nonsense, the sayable and the unsayable, as well as the saying that un says. Eels, anchorites, parrots, invertebrates, a ventriloquists dummy and a mechanical squirrel are all