"thank you, my heart:
time after time
you pluck me, separate even in sleep,
out of the whole.”*

were I to perform
an autopsy of that morning
no verdict would be self-sufficient:
Love
bursting like a sudden dancefall
in my veins
your voice imparts shivering
to my plugged shadow
and the day goes offline
I offer my skin as a battlefield
for whispers
I wouldn’t compromise with
birds on wire
or diagnose my boundaries
when time is turned into gold dust
among your empty shirts
lodging the imploded silence
and your shaved smile
like a hurricane lamp

the word I hate most is
Love
it says nothing
nothing at all
about you
the hidden dimension
in my flesh
the shape of us
without mercy

Where bathes you the morning dew
lights you the sun
colors you the dawn's hue
a moment newly begun.

Where shelters you the blue sky
soaks you the rain
lets out your heart's cry
words shape your pain.

Where dazzles you the sunshine
glooms end of day
hope is the silver line
living the only way.

Where gnaws you the sorrow's worm
runs you the smile
speaks to you the soul's calm
happiness is only a mile.

dead bodies floating
in our oceans
from the Asian Pacific
to the Mediterranean

crumpled corpses lying
on our beaches
thousands drowned unknown

overcrowded detention centers
not unlike concentration camps
behind barbed wires
guarded by police and snarling dogs

nobody feels responsible

not  those who started wars
destroyed whole cities
made millions homeless
and into refugees

not those who take advantage
of the chaos for their own gain
abusing the names of their gods
or some ancient figurehead
to excuse their atrocities and greed

not those who live
in comfortable homes
and wish the desperate crowds
would just stay on the TV screen
and not come close

nor those who pretend
to be the guardians
of our great humanitarian heritage
but show no backbone
against nationalist fanatics

it is the shame of the world
to sit and talk and watch
and not do enough

those who turn away
the needy and homeless
could also
      quite suddenly
lose their homes

forced to rely
on the kindness of strangers

so-in-time-so-inside or
as inside so in time
the plasma of thoughts far away
there in the spaces without meaning
the sprouts of faceless darkness
and systoles without time
I step from one silence into the other
and unshaped my body sings
I am babysitting my heart while the light loses its weight
on my shoulder
time is a pocket and I can hear only my blood

the luxury of mending this piece with that one
I am so complete when I am my feet
sometimes I don’t need a name
no need for one way roads
when quietly the dark sprouts me
and the days pass
without complaining

Light cloud pavilion light rain
Dark yard day weary open
Sit look green moss colour
About to on person clothes come

There's light cloud, and drizzle round the pavilion,
In the dark yard, I wearily open a gate.
I sit and look at the colour of green moss,
Ready for people's clothing to pick up.

We are the terraced women
piled row on row on the sagging, slipping hillsides of our
                                                                                               lives.
We tug reluctant children up slanting streets
the push chair wheels wedging in the ruts
breathless and bad tempered we shift the Tesco carrier bags
                                                                          from hand to hand
and stop to watch the town

The hill tops creep away like children playing games

our other children shriek against the school yard rails
‘there’s Mandy’s mum, John’s mum, Dave’s mum,
Kate’s mum, Ceri’s mother, Tracey’s mummy’
we wave with hands scarred by groceries and too much
                                                                                   washing up
catching echoes as we pass of old wild games

after lunch, more bread and butter, tea
we dress in blue and white and pink and white checked
                                                                                          overalls
and do the house and scrub the porch and sweep the street
and clean all the little terraces
up and down and up and down and up and down the hill

later, before the end-of-school bell rings
all the babies are asleep
Mandy’s mum joins Ceri’s mum across the street
running to avoid the rain
and Dave’s mum and John’s mum – the others too – stop
                                                                                                for tea
and briefly we are wild women
girls with secrets, travellers, engineers, courtesans, and stars
                                                                                 of fiction, films
plotting our escape like jail birds
terraced, tescoed prisoners rising from the household dust
like heroines.

Pennyanne Windsor, from *Poetry 1900-2000 One hundred poets from Wales