In the carpark
I'm startled
by a flight of leaves.
It's colder than yesterday
and trees are **********
I abandon the footpath,
tread between tiny red
apples buttoning twigs
and dry grass, find
a bird's curled feather
white as snowfall.
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 2:02 PM UTC
She finds no skylight
or space to fly
but dips in and out
of the little door
gathering twig
and grass and snags
of blown fleece.
She circles, plaits,
hatches a nest-worth
of speckled eggs,
fills her box
on the garden wall
with crescendos
of newborn song.
Aug 19, 2016
Aug 19, 2016 at 4:19 AM UTC
She dropped the" in-law" somewhere along the way:
I was the daughter she never had.
In her last illness we chatted over the phone,
exchanged family news and celebrity gossip.
One morning she asked if I felt better, urged me
to walk with a stick if my legs still hurt,
"now mind you do.."
I promised I'd be careful, didn't bother to explain
I'd had kidney cancer not achy legs.
Details weren't important.I knew what she meant.
A memory had escaped, freed us both
to a warmer place before dementia locked
the doors again,deep-froze the key.
Jul 27, 2016
Jul 27, 2016 at 7:11 AM UTC
"The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me" Sylvia Plath
Red is a restless diva
pacing in the wings,
making an entrance
as the carmine tulips
of a get-well bouquet.
Red is a strumpet
blaspheming the temple
where caring hands
smooth pristine
beach-white bedclothes.
Red is a snooper
********** her body's
fresh wound, wearing
her flowering heart
as a throbbing corsage.
Jul 27, 2016
Jul 27, 2016 at 7:01 AM UTC
I'm the first to blunder ashore
******* a cloak around my nakedness.
He's cooking breakfast
as though nothing had happened.
No death on a tree, no empty tomb,
no walking through closed doors.
We share the bread he breaks,
relish flakes of sizzling fish
that juice our mouths, tang
the fingers we lick clean.
We pick bones from our teeth,
bask,full-bellied,and for a while
it's like old times, waiting for him
to speak, arrange our day.
He takes me to one side, charcoal
smoke snagging his robe.
"Simon, do you love me love me love me?"
He knows when I sit and when I rise
but is heart-sore for answers
I blurt across the hills, over the lake,
above echoes of cock-crow
only the two of us can hear.
Jun 30, 2016
Jun 30, 2016 at 1:41 PM UTC
Splattered boots
stand ready, resting
from tied black laces
and muddy roads.
An attaché case
gapes too,
cwtches the photo
of a young woman
with dark wavy hair,
her unframed
forever- smile
focussed on a face
behind the camera
at the moment
the shutter clicked
and clicks and clicks
opening and closing,
packing and unloading,
staying and leaving,
making up a bed
from striped & labelled
winceyette.
Here's a tear
of tissue paper
stabbed urgently
on folded cloth
with random red stitches.
Here's the Star
of King David
pointing upwards,
locked on the blanket
by one steel safety pin.
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 11:36 AM UTC
She rises at dawn, chilled
by the lost embrace
of her sleeping pills, brushes
summer's blown ashes
with the shuffle of footsteps
on old stone floors.
She thaws her hands
around a coffee cup,
sits at her desk,
******** Ariel arrowed from
yesterday's tide hoof-printing
ocean waves jetting barnacles
telephone wires a man's black boot
routing them through
cold English mornings,
a gold Sheaffer pen.
Words seep
across the page,
trail toxins of grief.
Light edges
between churchyard yews,
fingertips the curtains.
A thumb's worth
of breast-milk
stains her nightgown.
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 1:15 PM UTC
He's a stone statue
on the old wire fence,
onyx eyes staring
as I sky-gaze..
Too white for rain,
too grey for snow.
I turn, tread noisily
and his heart's
a remembered flame
in the dying bush.
May 2, 2016
May 2, 2016 at 7:23 AM UTC
I'm glad you were spared
this hurt, Elizabeth.
If you were still alive
I'd journey again across the hills,
let our tears be his anointing,
our embrace his burial shroud.
John was the first to greet me
thirty years ago,
leapt for joy at the news I carried,
startled a blessing from your lips.
I marvelled as he grew,
plumped out your womb
until it hung beneath your gown
like an over-ripe pear.
I remember the kindness
of silent Zechariah,
noisy chickens in the courtyard
and the smell of raisin cakes.
I remember busy prayerful days
overblown with heat
until a breeze sweetened the valley,
lulled you into a doze.
You woke to rain
sounding the rooftops
and your own sharp cries
breath-held then relinquished.
I remember the with- woman's
skilful hands cradling John's head,
catching his sudden slippery length
glistening with your blood.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 3:01 PM UTC
Had it only been my feet
splayed across the grass,
toes gnarled and calloused
between soil and stone
before the clamping of my legs,
the fusing of my thighs,
the sealing of my buttocks
and tender-lipped ***
I could have held my baby son,
suckled him until he slept.
But black-growth swarmed my arms,
prickled on my hands.
My ******* crusted,
my milky ******* were taped,
tubed round and round
with strips of scaly bark.
Had they spared my face
the slap of leaves that clung,
whorled into my ears,
gagged my mouth
and lidded my eyes
he would have known my voice,
dreamt it rising from the glade.
But I flower with grief,
my blood-warm motherhood
sealed in a wooden tomb.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 2:00 PM UTC