so you are still in bed?



yes



are you not feeling any better?



no. it is like a bombshell, with

the bomb left in it. boom and my



little world i loved is shattered.



all my things are the same, yet

something shifted. i am bereft.



i cannot help, i am the same.



yes i know.



sbm.

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.

market day one, it is twice a week,

thursday and saturday, much

the same each day, books

for a donation, queue for the butcher.


waiting, eye the *******, ham and oxtail,

admire  pressed tongue, taste the salt on butter.


all addressed with green stuff

for decoration. the bread lady

will let you hold her goose eggs,

feel the weight of them, stroke the shell.


you do not need to buy them, you can

caress them nicely.


they are soft when born, soft as babies are.


above all stands the wooden man, scrubbed clean

with springy hair and wearing arms that hang

below the sleeve.


he talked to a lady from london,

he said.

sbm.

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.

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.

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.

wind rocking the night
shakes fences
unbolts wooden gates

                                         falling rose petals
                                         pirouette
                                         across unmown grass  

morning unwraps me
rolling sleep
onto sunlit floors