it is the last thing left of my children’s childhood
for sale, on Le Bon Coin
we have fixed the time and price
that is how it is done.
bartering between buyer and seller
of objects, second hand
second hand, which in the turning
does and has always undone.
forgotten in a basement corner
I dust it off before she comes
the children crowd but do not remember
how we carry them when we are young.
je veux pouvoir
vous tendre la main
deviner le dessin de votre bouche
d’une salutation à visage nu,
vous, l’inconnue.
je veux pouvoir
pousser la porte
la vôtre
celle de tous les autres
rentrer pour vous y croiser
à visage nu
vous, l’inconnue.
Kindle new and kindred fires
Ablaze against the dark
Make America Legendary Again
great was never enough.
the lake, child?
he is peering at me, even I can see that, in this desolate evening.
they drained the lake, child, years ago.
why, it was a long while back.
your mother had not even dreamt of you, then.
I thank him. She had said,
be courteous, as you make your way.
So I snatch at words which will not convince him
and walk on, for she also said,
be courageous, if you lose your way.
but if they have drained the lake,
I have failed her.
bathwater, turned stale, and I will have failed
the only quest and request
she has made of me.
a thrown stone from the local school,
we live, term-time
to the tune of its filling and emptying
and petit quart d’heures of play
punctuating week-days
like hole-punched paper.
dominating the rest
is the strident snap of the school-mistress
no whistle needed.
they fall in line and obedient, save for
one small résistante.
parents’ coaxing unheeded,
her cries rise,
loud and indignant
through our open September windows.
there is always one, I say out loud,
passive accomplice
of the system.
We cannot lay claim to his memory
no planting of our flags in this sentiment –
we were but briefly of his joyful world
and so, it would seem,
was he.
let us stand aside
flagbearers, all the same
as the real explorers arrive.
they must find
desolate wastelands
of last will and testament
bestowed
long before it was time.
I am not asked to describe it
Because you have forgotten.
Crosses to bear, in neat rows
I already have mine
I walk on.
I do not hazard to describe it
Today, invisible, tomorrow, invisible,
All the days before now
All those we have yet to face.
I sometimes cry:
I cannot go on
I shall go mad
It is unbearable –
Yet
there is no-one else.
It has been borne,
And must be.
hadn’t heard the song in twenty years
half my life. a lifetime ago
catch a plane to central America
English white girl,
what did I know
I would pick apart the lyrics
until I could roll them in my mouth
I would learn to drink tequila
and cuss
the right way round
I would merge my skin and senses
to those who shared my days
sleep out, or late, or not at all
become
the local scrap-fed stray.
Manu Chao on counterfeit CD
half my life. a lifetime ago
I had picked apart the lyrics
qué horas son,
mi corazón
No-one makes me tea
now you’re not here.
let alone that first cuppa
carried
upstairs
carefully,
as wary of bed-hair
as of spillage.
But you never slopped the tea.
sloppy
is not in your nature
nor your resignation letters
left downstairs
carefully,
lukewarm
propped against lukewarm.
now
no-one makes me tea.
