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Pacific blue, my old bikini rises from the drawer, shedding the somnolence of two decades in which a series of more sober swimming costumes wiggled down the catwalk of my holidays.
The question then, as I stood sideways to the mirror, was whether my delicately curving stomach appeared concave or convex. A test no longer needed, sadly, but superseded by new challenges.
No cheating, no tightening of muscles, holding breath or pulling stomach in. All will be revealed, I squeeze new wine-fed flesh into old wine skin,
wondering whether a periscope is needed for looking in a southerly direction. Can Mons Venus still be seen – discreetly covered in my blue bikini; or is the view of pubic hair impeded?
Light shines through the package in ultra-thin covering snuggling on my knee.
Firm, plump, soft, embracing the perfume of a fig that’s ripe for eating: I bury my nose to inhale your sweetness.
Leaning against my breast and dreaming down the years, your small, strong fingers fondle mine,
discovering and pulling at the folds of loose flesh on my hands that surprise me, unite me
with generations of incredulous women who learned from the wisdom of their grandchildren that they were on their way to growing old.
published in South 33, Apr 06; in collection, Touching Earth, 2007, Oversteps Books, ISBN 978-0-9552424-7-2; in anthology, Cracking On, 2009, Grey Hen Press, ISBN 978-0-9552952-4-9
Shaped sounds that leave their pot pouri perfume lingering in empty rooms, melting into beeswax polish, curling and swirling in mists of incense.
Folk tales, childhood incantations, favourite scripture passages that have no need to play on lips or echo in the chambers of the ear; words repeated until their meaning drains away,
while sinking deeper, tender in the tinder of the heart; and though their repetition conveys no information can still surprise as echoes of hidden music rise up through the mundane and familiar.
Words known more deeply than thought or memory, creating in secret the context of identity: important, trivial words that change the world, like goodnight, and I love you.
in collection, Touching Earth, 2007, Oversteps Books, ISBN 978-0-9552424-7-2; in anthology, Cracking On, 2009, Grey Hen Press, ISBN 978-0-9552952-4-9
Tsunami 26th December 2004
A new word, savoured on the tongue like sushi,
sweeps in, swamping languages with all the inevitable bitterness of brine.
At such apocalypse the earth quakes and the sea coughs up its dead,
choked on the horror of a force not seen or understood. Such indescribable malignity and might
requires a strange new foreign word to bear its drowning weight.
published in South 33, Apr 06; in collection, Touching Earth, 2007, Oversteps Books, ISBN 978-0-9552424-7-2 |
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