fragments

 

listen, she says:

this is important.

there is no border between the countries

of lost and found.

what gets sandwiched

between two plates of glass

*

he says from now on i’ll only do

the things that could kill me:  not

the things that hurt.

it’s a form of cowardice.

*

a syringe of tongues

driving each hypodermic word

*

it all goes down

like whiskey in a cyclone

the virga in the eye

*

this is a kind of aphasia:

that momentary silent

blinking self-assessment which follows

the soft collisions

of small children

house

they stamp childness into floorboards

house folds them up in wideawake opendoors

billows bedsheets laundrywise

breathes them in

and out

they sing childness through walls

out windows into clearblue

house swings low a

woodendrone makingsong

hums and hugs it all the livelong day

they wind house into their plaits

wear cupboards for shoes

open house bookwise and draw

in the margins.  house dogears photographs

all stickycornered crackspined and tissueleaved

they shout about house quarrelsome

feedem patacake mudwiches

dress dollypegs shoot marbles for funsies

house squints along wooden arm

says keepsies

they run rings round house widdershins

sing crosstich rainyday fingerpricks

house spells magic alphabetty

knits cobbyweb sweaters knobwristed

fixes shadows on with cobblerspegs and gob oil

they splash house kettlesteam bathtime

wriggle slipperyfish soapsuds

p’tending littlepig tadpoles

house cups chubcheeks tenderloined

buffs roughpink in terrytowel

they play sleepover.  share beds pass out tumblepupped

under vanillamilk and honeyspeak

house eases a wooden buttock

on a stone chair

draws breath moth to light

they tell house seeyou clattershout doorslam

house rumbles emptybellied

coughs chalk dust

pulls greenrug round ears chillfingered

sings nighnight sleepytight seeyou

seeyou seeyou

the true princess

the true princess cares not

that her robes
once graced a window.

the true princess cares not

that her coronet
was, until yesterday, a yoghurt tub, and buttons

the true princess cares not

that her ballroom
is a tinselled school gymnasium

the true princess
is not born of kings

the true princess
holds court in my heart

the true princess
moves with easy grace

through
a convocation of minor royalty

flying with jack

"HEY! how did you get here?"

my son asked, when

he noticed me behind him.

"i flew"

i replied.

his five year old

not-quite guile-less eyes

widened.

"can you really fly, dad?"

(me, airily)  "oh yes.  but i only do it

when no one is looking.

people often get upset

when they realise you can fly."

"can I fly too, dad?"

"of course.  it's easy

when you know the trick.

but don't let on.

people

might not understand."

a dawning in those

deep brown eyes

the colour of

good strong coffee

in a glass

held to the light

happily

he ran off

to tell his sisters

"i flew"

the combined weight of their

separate scorn

was not enough to

drag him

back to earth

.

i read to them

as my father read to us.
it is about cadence.
rhythm.  shared
heartbeats and the journey.

reading is magical for Millie.
Sometimes she will take my hand,
my finger.  Place it
on the text so that she can follow
more closely.

the other two read easily, but for her
each word is a window and
i watch her push them open.
i burst
i burst

Child, slip over the sill.
run.  Run.  you inhabit your body
so fully.  Jump.
dance.
here is a jumble of letters.
make of them what you will.




.

Fathers and Daughters

It’s possible, I think,

observing some young women in company,

to see right through to

their relationships with their fathers:

mildly, safely flirtatious,

necks curved swanlike,

heads bent to meet authority,

eyes raised; it almost always works.

Like certain caterpillars,

they carry their homely cocoon

spun of kiss-spittle and spared rods

everywhere: it’s in their tote bags

alongside mother’s jealous food-gifts,

adjacent to their breastbud heartbeats

and rubs against their coyly shaven,

faintly pheremonal armpits.

All courtly love ends up in court of course,

too grand to be human;

the contract broken, lawyers called,

sides taken.

The party of the first part

now sees the paragraph called “father”

nested within yet other nested clauses.

To name some:

men who love another,

to whit, the one both ally and enemy

(she of the jealous food-gift)

men who hurt my mother

(by their love, or lack thereof)

men who have or may hurt me

(see above)

men who lie with me - or not

(aah, that horned beast)

men who lie to me

(and yet…)

The various Sins

of Omission

Commission

Intromission.

Ultimately,

and nakedly,

these butterfly-girls

come out.

Chew holes in the fragile vellum

digest with acid and bile

the webby cage of youth,

flap off

on wings like canvas

stretched and sized and

painted gaudy colours.

Deep in the household accounts,

Father, with his head for figures,

chews his pencil.
Draws up two columns

in his ledger:

Women

on one side

Daughters

on the other.

And the entries

double spaced

neatly underlined

in each case read:

those who have or may hurt me

those who betray me

those who leave me

those who will/not sleep with me

those I have held in my arms

those who say they love/d me

profit and loss

all balanced out.

Then calculates the bottom line:

accountants should not associate

too closely with lawyers.