valentine
sweet fallacy the heart
this heaving muscle glistens darkly
something like a toad
From Weather Eye
Startling Point
You think me unsurprising. Wait –
I have a thing or two to share. I’ll never
be the river in full spate, the raging fire,
but, look, I have my moments too:
fish-leap, a flash of juggled silver
barely seen before the splash,
a fleeting shadow shooting through
the water to some secret place;
the sudden kudu in the underbrush,
etched by your headlights, leaping clear.
And you paused at the wheel, aware:
at first just awed by muscled grace,
but then, the mind’s eye’s shattered glass,
the heart’s revealing race, the taste of fear.
Published in Seam
Meet My Father
Meet my father, who refuses food –
pecks at it like a bird or not at all –
the beard disguising his thin cheeks.
This, for a man whose appetite was legend,
hoovering up the scraps his daughters couldn’t eat.
The dustbin man, we joked.
And here he is, trailing his fork
through food we’ve laboured to make soft,
delicious, sweet. Too salty, or too tough,
it tastes of nothing, makes him choke,
he keeps insisting, stubbornly.
In truth, the logic’s clear. His very life
is bitter and the spice it lacks is hope.
He wants to stop. Why do we keep on
spooning dust and ashes down his throat?
From A Fold in the Map
Usury
You pith me, borrowing a layer of this milky skin -
your magic cloak, invisible, to wrap
your hero-lover ego in –
and snap this spine in two, like that,
so I am supple, pliant, bending backwards
to your fingers’ click. Your acrobat.
Your little monkey coaxing coins into the upturned hat.
A cute apprentice turning tricks, I caper
to the tune and grin, teeth needled like a cat’s.
Your tame familiar, little pet, so silky-sleek,
I’m always game and play so well –
the heist, the hoax, the bare-faced cheek –
always your slick accomplice, Bonnie to your Clyde.
Your lucky charm. Oh yes, I am
your bread-and-butter, milk-and-honey bride.
Taught by ‘Yours Truly’, Master Shyster, Mr Money Man,
this good-time girl is never at a loss,
but can be streetwise, run a scam,
work sharp at cards and somehow always wins the toss.
So caveat emptor, this baby don’t come cheap –
is not content with surfaces, the gilt, the gloss,
but wants the dark and dirty, meaningful and deep,
and has a yen for more than just a pound
of flesh and blood. The interest’s steep,
I know, but if you really want to play
and pare me, melt me down, strip off
and dress me up, you’ll have to pay.
Did no-one tell you there’s a catch to every wish?
The genie’s out the bottle, boy –
I am no gold-egg goose, no sovereign-bellied fish –
I am the lone shark, love,
and now it’s pay-back time.
2nd Prize, Ilkley Poetry Competition, 2007
Vision
At first you think they’re birds,
swooping low
into the summer dusk
when the long hot day’s distilling
means the garden’s only roses, roses –
most beautiful with your eyes closed,
shut against the tumbled
brickwork and the weeds –
but soon it will be dark
and from the high, thin squeaks
you’ll know they’re bats,
as the stars’ spores
swell, promising more,
poking their green-white light
through the black soil of the sky.
First published in The Wolf