The boy bursts in on the meadow at the south gate

and hedges left to stop and check the progress of his escape.

No-one.  Only grasshoppers mark his wake; ahead, only

meadow-sweet and rare grasses.  He breaks, heads east,

through yellow oat and crested dog’s tail.

The man comes in at the north, in his blackest suit;

raw from the sense of waste.  Behind him, the crooked angle

of the church thrusts a trident tower through ancient elms,

key protectors of this place. Solitude.  He walks slowly,

trying not to think.  But memory has no respect.

He recalls a picnic here;  a man, his wife, a boy.  And now,

cresting the slight rise, he sees him, impossible and small.  

Taken by surprise, he’s joyful for a moment.  Then all he knows

is hate.  For this boy, this arrogant intruding boy.  Hate enough to kill.

The boy drops.  Does the man know what he’s done?  He can’t be caught.

Long seconds lumber by.  The boy crabs right, the man tracks left,

all without sight of man by boy or boy by man.  And each says

All I have to do is wait.  But no boy comes and no man, until

the boy rises and they realise what they’ve done.  The boy begins to

race the distance, roaring. The man stands his ground, fists wide,

but the boy’s age―his cut, his colouring―

too dark and wild, the image of his son.  The meadow shakes

with thundering:  the bounding footfall of a boy, the strip and tear

of grasses, the drunk June sun, a man’s eyes shut tight,  

and the silenced chaffinch waiting, wondering.

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Body Language “I like the whisper of hair/ under her armpit.   It suggests/ that she’s not one of those women/ who are always trying to get rid/ of their smell.”                                     Vicki Feaver    OI YOI YOI   Give me silky legs glistening in the sun, bikini line and oxters done and no shame for the dishonest shape-shifter I’ve become. Give me orange and magnolia to bathe away my scent – when it’s Woman-Ready-for-a-Man, I’d just as soon my body said “Only if I say”. And when I choose to go against the master plan by coating earthworm lips with New Dawn rose or copper pink, grape or cherry blossom balm, it’s no more a disguise than wearing clothes. Or would you have me naked?   No deceitful lines between my vulva and the twitching public nose? Hirsute and unscented may be truth of a kind, but there are worse things, when you feel exposed, than silk and oranges, and roses, to hide behind.   Anne Stewart   published in The Interpreter’s House, Nov 03 ISSN 1361-5610, nominated for Forward Prize, 2004 This poem is discussed in Mary Michaels' article How Does Your Poem Smell?, in Connections, Spring 2005 edition. See Strix Varia for Anne's reflection on the writing of it

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The open coffin seems, itself, perplexed.

A matron there in flimsy fire-bent clothes.

What comfort for a child could be supposed

to pace the hide and seek of last respects?

A puzzled child.  Untutored.  What comes next?

Should there be words?  Out loud?  A minute slows

into another;  time chilling as it goes,

as though denying what the child expects.

And nothing happens.  Nothing but the air

remaining cold.  The child speaks anyway,

by way of hedging bets;  she can’t be sure

she won’t be heard.  She’ll never know from where

the years returned;  the years of things to say,

her patient husband waiting at the door.

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