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.

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.

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.

"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.

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 ****-crow
only the two of us can hear.

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.

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.

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

Each year
they seem to die,
winter
beneath scarred wood
transforming in the dark.

Pale buds
return, fingertip
the air,
unclench fistfuls
of layered cream

I balance
against my hands,
relinquish
to day, night,
sunlight and rainfall

showering petals
across the lawn,
hemming
my garden path
with summer silks

Treasure your holidays
in Llandudno, Alice.
Skip along the promenade,                          
play tag on the beach
and when it’s time for bed                                
wave goodnight to the sea
as it drinks the sunset.

Go boating on the Thames.                            
Paddle your fingers.                                      
Listen to stories, doze.

Chase a talking  white rabbit
sporting white
 kid gloves.    


Take tea with a dormouse,
  play croquet with a Queen:
  
  this is not your dream
  but makes you smile.

  Don’t wish too hard
  for womanhood,
  it arrives soon enough.

  You’ll be feted, photographed,
   posed as holy Agnes
   and noble Alethea.  
                
  With "dreaming eyes of wonder" 
  Discover Alice
  in your own looking-glass.

   And when it’s time to dance
    in your bridal gown
    cherish the moment.

    Two sons will die
    fighting for their country.

    Remember them
    as flames that burn
    long after each candle’s
    blown.

You lean over the table and touch my hair,
ease it from my face, flick it down my neck.
Beautiful,you say, though the colour's mixed
by Carys at the salon, daubed onto my roots.

We eat while I window gaze, the ice-pink sky
slushing to grey, the day in transit between light
and dark as night tows it across the afternoon,
discards shadows of where I walked and stood.

Shoppers to and fro along the pavement, edge
further from the sun with each footfall and turn
of a baby buggy wheel and I'm lost,slip-sliding,
paring time into remainders. I  tell you how I feel

knowing it's Autumn, our favourite season; October,
the month we were married all those years ago.
You look surprised,disappointed,but when I ask
you smile, shake your head, speak of other things.

Garden cuttings grew slowly
in my Aunt's back lawn.

She coaxed them with words
and wet tea-leaves,
watched them flourish one year
in sunlit rows.

Mum had no time for flowers,
looked warily
at this late harvest
from the Mother she adored.

Dried lavender
sifted into hand-sewn bags
we tucked beneath petticoats,
knickers, linen handkerchiefs.

Roses and pinks
filling clear glass vases,
scenting the house as though
Gran was close by,

had just stepped outside
to unpeg her washing.

He's hunkered down
for the night,
I know this toasted
do-not-disturb-me
duvet-bundled shape.

I won't disturb him
though he snores,
grunts, filches
more duvet from
my half of the bed.

His hair's
too boyishly tousled
on the pillow,
his familiar spine
so purpose-built

for lying
beside, nuzzling
against, sneaking
my arm around
in the dark.