I was half-hidden on the half landing, when it appeared, under the bulb: a skinned rabbit keening on the kitchen table, a brood parasite that gaped and writhed. That greedily petitioned her to open wide. Craning, I saw her press the savage slash (a pink-lipped supernormal stimulus) to her side. It latched (headfirst). I held …
Cross-legged and urgent,the man beneath Lambeth Bridgerecommends we (all of us) make love,surrendering the sex we owe one another. How disappointing then,that we linger in long sleepand joggers brush shoulderswithout peeling to the knees.
Gravity: tugging our luggage, bidding us settle downAs a new crowd, as doctors and developersConverging on the Clyde, reminiscing about pills,Both taken and prescribed. And No one sighs, ‘Mine’s a small world.’ But I could.Because I know/know of/once knew these men,Though never knew them quite like this,Beaming brightly. What radiance! What display! What’s gilded these …
The nurses told your children first,Passed on the news, passed on the taskOf calling, corralling the massOf scraps you left behind. By no means Complete Collected Works,But hardly either a meagre sum: a hive,Four degrees, a swarm of type,Assorted memories and sons. Your greying boys will tell the beesHow, well after harvest, you still stirredSweetness …
The city unspools,Loosing strange trackside shanties: Hunched-over hills and buckling sheep,Oily green and dusty ochre, Blank country that repeats itselfLike rhythmically shuffled postcards. All that, Until the tunnel gulps,Pressing us in peristalsis. Then, red-ringed jelliesReplace the whole world.
You smell like garden,She says, meaning soil,Wood and water. True, I have been at play,Breaking planters whichCould not withstand rain. She flowers; I bend to tend.You smell like garden,She says, again.
The pelican at the front deskWas enough to make you weep.Beak stuck with violenceIn the breast. Blood welled out the clay, and downTo clotted tongues, more smeared beaks,To red and ready maws. BloodGiven up for blood. Her chicks were slight beneath her bulk.She seemed shrunken by their wants.They were made to make us sob, soBlame …
Our touring, our junketing stalled at Orkney.We shed waterproofs,fogged the windscreen, nodded along with McCartney,waiting for the sun.Our guide described horizons flecked with haloes,sea hissing through harr,fires that stuttered on jutting tallow-smeared stonesplanted in peat and,alongside bones (or charred fragmented clay),a brown skull gathering rain. Its brow lay low like the island, cropped by cords,lengthened …
Later you explained the tug in your left sideusing diagrams of divided womanhood, unpacking pamphlets of pink chaliceswith lowered fallopian horns. The flesh, it transpired,didn’t resemble an apple core. Nor did white flecks flarelike malign constellations. But when he touched the loopto your mutable field, it set you aflame.State the fact: your body was fixedby …
