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27th September, 2024

Friday Poem – ‘Everyone Will Be There’ by Kathryn Bevis

Close up of a colourful silk parachute open with sunlight streaming through it

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Everyone Will Be There’ by Kathryn Bevis from her collection The Butterfly House in honour of it having been Highly Commended by the Forward Prizes and featured in the Forward Book of Poetry 2025.

Everyone will be there
in their tea frocks, their slim fitting
suits, their lumberjack shirts, their sequinned
skirts. They’ll arrive in their dozens by wagon,
on horseback, in cars and on unicycles, shod
in their heels and brogues, their spats
and chunky trainers. Amy will have manicured
nails. Dillon’s buzz-cut will flatter their face
more than they know. Everyone will come
as themselves. Noah will untie bright balloons
from backs of pews and we’ll watch them rise
to bob on the vaulted ceiling. Rosa will trapeze
from arch to pillar, from gargoyle to crest
to scoop them up in shining armfuls.
And there’ll be cake, more cake
than you’ve ever seen: custard slices,
black forest gateaux, a Victoria sponge
with cream, raspberries and mint,
a lemon drizzle drenched
in elderflower syrup, French macarons
in fancy flavours — rose and pistachio,
lavender and orange, almond and fig.
Everyone will get to eat their favourite
cake. It’s going to be delicious.
Lucy will invent outdoor games and Matt
will win them all, though there’ll be trophies
and medals for everyone. Then we’ll play
with a huge parachute and there will be no
winners, just a silken circle held
in all our hands, on whose whirling centre
we’ll bless the babies, bouncing them in turn.