O my people what have I done to you?
how have I offended you?
Do not answer
I would have led you from slavery to freedom
but you have nailed me to the cross of myself
For twenty years I have led you through a desert
fed you with lies, as you desired
O my people what have I done to you?
how have I offended you?
Do not answer
What more should I have done for you that I have not done?
You could have been the grapes of a choice vintage
Because you would not move from exhausted soil
you chose to be thin, sour wine
I would have opened a path through a sea of confusion
you closed your hearts before I could dare to speak
O my people what have I done to you?
how have I offended you?
Do not answer
Do not answer. You have no need to answer
Your small accounts are right with the small god
you worship. Mine
are deep in debt. I am the creditor
who gives himself no quarter
O my people
I have done worse than nothing
I have offended you
by not offending
She can’t remember a time
before she knew to be careful.
No-one told her. She knew.
Her mother used to squeeze her hand so tight
she felt it crack. She’s never risked touch since,
spent childhood dodging
the heavy arms of aunts,
washing the smears
of fishmouth kisses from her skin.
She saw a glass frog once, its guts
clustered in its belly like pale grapes,
its small heart pittering:
took to covering herself –
high collars, sleeves to wrists,
thick tights. Like an old maid
said her mother. No boyfriends yet?
the aunts would dig. Afraid of heat
she’d hurry past lovers fused
mouth to mouth in a doorway,
likes cool places still,
country churches on weekday afternoons,
the saints in the windows filtering light
through sightless eyes.
Old glass is her favourite: its pieced
stories jewel-bright, simple, remote
as fairy-tale. Does she notice
how sometimes it bulges towards the base
thick and opaque, as if all these years
it’s been sneaking out of the leaden cames,
slipped down, let itself go?
I sharpened a new quill today
shaving the pliant bone
fallen from the wing of a sky-
wanderer, its feathers shaded
mist-grey to rain-grey,
gave thanks so lovely a thing
had come into my keeping,
its balance between finger and thumb
the poise of flight.
In that moment I was out
of myself, the sky above me
drawing me on and up
blue on blue on blue
without end.
See here a toddler’s arm,
the plump wrist creased,
the dimpled fingers curving
as if waiting for the mother
to clasp all six tight in her own.
Hush now, she’d say, it’s all right.
There in the next jar, harshly lit,
hangs another, the mirror image
down to its supernumerary digit.
Whoever labelled them typed neatly
on old-fashioned keys, their medic’s language
precise. No sign of a slip.
What I’m looking at spelled out.
Twice over. Still I fail to grasp.