Confetti

‘You are not alone…’ sang Michael but she was.

Being married had its good points

you could start each sentence with ‘my husband’

like an alarm set to snooze

but eventually it was shop assistants

and men who spoke only at closing time

as they helped you into your coat

who would check for the circle of gold.

And later; you sat on the bed

but did not open the bags

or shake off that coat

but opened the drawer

your fingers searching the soft silk

to find the pretty box.

Inside; the keepsake confetti

recollected from the cold stone of the church

had grown paler

and in the dressing table mirror

someone else returned your gaze.

North

We went north

but through the filth

flecked upon the windscreen

it looked just the same

the sky overcast

the tail lights of the vehicle in front

the same glint of red.

 

Refuelling at a motorway station

the international colours conformed

the burger; wrapped in its waxy paper; overfamiliar.

I wanted it to feel foreign in my fingers

greasier maybe or harder to swallow

but it was only the tilt of words that rang true

that took us from home.

 

We left the main road and journeyed into verdant hills

and then rolled down; down into valleys

the clouds behind us; foot off the brake.

The houses dwindled

the bare dirty trees

in regular intervals at the side of the road

becoming dense forests.

 

Several times my eyes left the blurred road

in pursuit of the shadows left by deer

or men on horseback

their arrows scudding into the soft bark.

And then the last of the clouds cleared

and rows and rows of grey thackstones

beckoned us on and into their heart.

 

Cousins and the children of cousins smiled

opening their arms to greet the strangers

from a southern city and in the holding close

revealed themselves familiar

as we laughed aloud and they fell to talking

of old times that went against my nature

and the word of God.

 

Later I stepped out into less heavy air

and climbed the hill behind the little house.

Atop it the church loomed dark

its sandstone blistered and pitted

the cobs of the old yard cracked

beneath the weight of weathered stones

the script all but gone from them.

 

I gulped the cool air; sucked in sharply

at the brevity; the suffering

each unfortunate laid out; unremembered

and whilst searching for my namesake; a favourite game

I found a tiny child asleep among her people

but I left her sleeping.

 

Back in the car

we looked out beyond the hills

through the clouds

and deep into the forests at the trees

their leaves drenched by the fall of rain

the soil almost black.

 

Their roots went deeper than they did down south

pressed down hard

by the weight of all that rain

and love -she would be the last of her mother’s children

and things unchanged

and time

of course.

All the times I’ve left you.

 

 

 

I’ve looked for but cannot locate

the antidote to this ambivalence

clinging

barnacle to rock face

to all I thought we were.

 

Like Frankenstein’s monster

as we try not to be

our fathers; our mothers

we lurch from shaky foot

to shaky foot.

 

Blockheads; close upon blind

the pain pools from us

like an overturned bottle of ink

seeping through skin; paper thin

indelible.

 

I am unforgiven; paying dear

for the sins of some other Eve

and you have sentenced to death.

Fish on hooks we thrash; strangling

choking slowly in the net.

 

All the times I’ve left you

your breath in the night’s quiet; smoking

a lonely-hours uncomforting cigarette.

Aghast as you felt for me beside you

but found instead a frigid hollow.

 

When you stand to remember me (and until the cows come home)

Give credence to your subject

speak well of me, do

paint me a vivid hue

–scarlet!

Pale was never my colour.

 

Leave the assemblage

wistful

for some glimpse of me just up ahead

in shoes that are muddy from the walking of

a shock-haired, wet tongued mutt.

 

Tan jacket; the leather cracked

creased as much as I

by now a well-thumbed oft told tale

bold

block-printed on the page.

 

Knit together the fine detail of me

weave me

as an amaranthine scarf

keep out the cold

and picture me always on the cusp of a smile.

 

Each; every moment that I had

in retrospect exquisite.

I was not a dancer though I danced all the same

I was not a singer

but I sang.

 

And each time I wander into view

(see those cows coming home?)

mind the last of my pearls

it’s true you are without me

but I am with you; always.

 

over lunch we become better friends…

‘We are butter fiends’ I say to the boy, and I wink
and in return he gives me the drop-shot smile he reserves
for aged aunts and lechers -he will suffer me
for the six pounds an hour in his pocket, plus tips.

I sigh inwardly; provoked
like I am a Michael Winner movie to be gotten through
-rush the garlic mushrooms, get to the Brownies by twenty-past
let the door swing behind them by twenty-five to.

I intend the fiend joke to reassure my mother; that
(in the absence of my father) I won’t send her to the bar
or to the ladies toilet to figure out where the flush is
or how to dispense the soap (which could take her some time).

The joke unites us; now we are girls together –fiendish!
We giggle as I teach her to text and show her the wedding shots
from an Auckland that was once a destination but is now the moon
and is well beyond legs that ache on reaching Camden Town.

The boy returns with hot potatoes but we juggle between us
one of our own –some ancient argument that is batted between us
like a tattered shuttlecock but we are reluctant and soon tire
falling silent when he approaches the table; sighing, we are filled.

As we get up to leave, the little evacuee (still wearing the label)
whispers a polite ‘thank you’-for the bread and marge supper
her thirteen shillings worth. How thin she stayed – how I envy her.

She admires, envies in return how I drive a car, pay a bill
raise a child alone. I have grown bigger over lunch
she has lost years; has not fussed with her hearing aid
not wished for him quite so much.

On reaching the car she tells me about her mother
who thought her stupid and then
(as though it were a secret she has kept) confesses she is not.
I drive slowly over the wet leaves; we are indeed butter fiends.

to the mothers of girls…

I watched the woman and her tiny child
bonneted; every shade of pink
clad in illustrated rubber boots
to stay the waters foamy-edged invasion.

One foot, two feet; plopped onto the sand
until a comic Chaplinesque sequence
had carried her
from shiny treasure shell to shiny treasure shell.

All the while the woman stayed nearby
quick to steady her; mindful of a fall
the sharp stones that waited on the ground
to split apart a still unsullied skin.

From between her milk-fat, wind-ruddied cheeks
a crescent moon of pristine pearls appeared
and two minikin starfish; sand encrusted
reached upwards; a show and tell -“Mummy, Sand.”

I knew them but did not approach; walking further on
as the sea washed the shore. I knew them and
I kept them close
but I did not look back.

She will feel the tide drag the water from the sand
the shoreline forever altered.  She will mourn when
first words are lost upon the biting wind of change
when seasons turn and pink is no longer the favoured hue.

Those precious pearls will loosen, fall; hid beneath a sleeping head
stole by faeries in the midnight ink and bit by bit
the child will unfold until the blush of her cheek; tone of her lips
are drawn with a new kind of crayon.

I will see the woman again at the water’s edge; alone.
grateful; we will sink our toes in the cooling, fast-fading footfalls
made and left by our line; our children just a blink of the eye from us
shaded pink among the shiny treasure shells.

Maybe you shouldn’t stay the night…

Afterwards we laid there a while
him all awkward limbs; left nostril whistling
me trying to recall if he’d said Darren or Darryl

I was halfway decided on Dale after all
when he picked up my toothbrush in his left hand
right hand still down the front of his pants.

He admired a lacquered bowl I kept hairpins in and remarked
‘Nice’in the kind of voice he’d use for some passing blonde
on Rochford Way, then carried on despite my
open mouth

pushing a queerly twisted thumb against the rubber button
’til the brush hummed softly
and in the three a.m. quiet it buzzed a lot louder in his hands
than I had.

I thought germs, I thought bacterial infection
I thought red, swollen gums
I thought cardiac seizure, arrest him and then
incredulous
I watched
as he pressed the soft bristles to his not so pearlies
eyed himself
as too, too much of him loomed large in my magnifying mirror
casually studying a white-headed pimple on his chin and then
with that bent over backwards thumb
(now with matching forefinger)
he pinched a little
winced a little
got a determined look to him
as he smiled, announced in mid-american tone

“Target sighted, range 500 metres, lock n load.. BOOM!
Let’s go home boys!”

squeezed
and the pimple shot its load
sprayed a bloody, soap-scum across my mirror

I thought knife
I thought axe
I thought long, drawn out garroting
as he grinned
foamed at the mouth
spat into the basin then wiped
‘Brite-White’ spittle
onto my fuchsia hand towel
sang ‘Sunday Girl’ in a higher key than Debbie Harry.

He stood there in my bathroom
taking up too much space and making me feel fat
and then he held the brush out toward me
still buzzing
said “Two minutes minimum, and don’t forget to floss.”

Winked.

I think I might have picked him up
(can’t remember) but he left quickly followed by his clothes.
I think a shoe got thrown.

He looked up at me from two floors down
puzzled
I’m stood on the balcony in my oversized Forever Friends tee-shirt

no knickers.

He shouts up “You must be getting your period”
another (matching) shoe is thrown.

The next day there it is
caught
hung upside down in a thorn bush
which is better than he deserved.

I left it there, three days; four days
five
like a traitor’s head stuck on a spike and each time I passed it
I smiled
gleeful
warmed

I was almost tachycardic
and even in December; half hidden beneath snow
it looked the wrong size to me.

Almost May and still I pass it
like a sign above the doorway of a long-empty pub
groaning in a fierce gale
a warning to the ‘sharers’ of this world.

Aubade

Dawn and they slumber on

limbs entangled, breath rhythmic; untroubled

bathed in dust-specked sun.

The shrill song of day

as it finds each chink in the ditsy-print curtains

falling first upon her face and then

in an enticing constellation

it orbits their quiet congruence

in a slowly unfolding son et lumière.

Awaking; her fingers curled around his ribs

lifting; falling with his breath

she lays; listening

to a rhythm circadian

to the sonorous beat, beat, beat of him

remembers how they sought one another

their skin blue-white; electric in the blonde of the moon

exuding a slow and glorious heat

that rose, surged; spilled in their divine duet.

Still; she lays

languid in the sweat creased sheets

steeped in an aurous glow

blind to the light

holding her breath

for fear the day will break.

every Alice

 

 

I whispered kind to the child inside but her reflection
in the glass of a chip shop on the Cally Road
did the talking; drowned me out.

Hot potato stopped up her gullet
like a stone from the side of the road
her middle flopping over her pants

but
wanting to be the lady her mother wished her
she wouldn’t spit.

When at last those chips went down
they sat in her belly
indurating

laid siege to her; twisting up her insides and although
the violence of their passage through her
had its beauty

it left
the new pink drawers
scarred a livid red.

I have done my share of shouting since
called, cajoled
but that mad-hat girl puts her hands over her ears

runs them over an empty baby-belly
thinks how nice the knife would slice
the stitches pull up tight.

I throw compliments like stones but I cannot
crack the glass.
She’s Tinker bell; a firefly caught in a jar.

Her snow-globe smile (Shake it up Baby!)
hides her awful truth
the remnants of a feline grin left in her fading light.

Like every Alice hers is a distorted view
and she looks inward
inspects herself through a fairground glass

misreads the label (Eat Me) but when I look closely
‘Love me’ runs the length of her
-like peppermint rock.

matters pertaining to the murder of children

 

You were (all of you) oh so delicate; crushed
-pressed against the glass; petals flattened
the sap from the midrib bleeding into each bruise

spread like the last of a jar of jam
Sweet Violets in a Bastard Mahogany frame.
Captured; the bastard

in the shuttered eye of a camera obscura
–his own blacked; in a fitting reprisal
delivered by the boys in blue; cheering themselves up

while in the station canteen
(I like to imagine) ‘Anyone who had a heart’
was played too loud.

We shut our eyes; tried not to see the months
the moments just before the dark chambers of your own
infant hearts had ceased to pulse

long moments that would grow, become monsters we hid from
if we did not reign them in with enquiries, with outcomes
with findings

though I have found it difficult since; to put from my mind
to forsake you oh my darlings,  as I find myself still wanting
to suture the wounds in your frail petals

bewailing the ugly obliquity of your broken stems
my face (like your own might once have been)
pressed close to the glass for sight of you, lost

in childish rhyme ‘He loves me, he loves me not’
-you blow upon the comose clocks of wet-the-beds
skipping home from school.