Catherine Wheel

When you’ve lit a banger in the box,
your eyes, in direct conflict with your feet,
will want to stick around – How many will go off?
What angles? What’s the safest method of retreat?

Perhaps the fuse will sputter out and die
if you back off just right. But then it might
be only playing dead. The box is deft and sly
with secrets, mortar mines bursting to ignite.

And if you try, the chances are you’ll fail,
between the fizzle and delayed-reaction spark,
to snuff it out. It might be safe to watch it flail
and hiss and spin from stock still in the dark

but, one wrong move, the whole shebang will catch
and no place safe, for you, from that corrosive spit.
You wish you could get close without the match
but, long ago, you learned that you are it.

Anne Stewart

in collection The Janus Hour, 2010, Oversteps Books,
ISBN 978-1-906856-16-8

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Nightscape

You came and picked me up at two a.m.
without me asking. What was in your mind?
That danger might be walking home with me
this night more than the other hundred times?

I’ve often told you how I love the air
at two a.m. when it’s so clear and clean
the nightbirds’ warnings not to interfere
seem to include me in their reach of care.

Or how the moon slides her shy way
behind a wisp of cloud and sends a flood
of ash-grey light, a one-night only show
that’s just for me, played on the shining road.

You enter, centre stage, and change the scene.
We talk a little. But not of air or moon.

Anne Stewart

in collection, The Janus Hour, 2010, Oversteps Books,
ISBN 978-1-906856-16-8

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The Meeting of Generous-Seeming Men

They amaze me. Out of nowhere they step into step,
link arms sometimes. I shake them off. What do they want?
They keep their distance then. I wonder when they’ll ask
for money, sensitive stuff – address, phone. Or try to lead me
someplace I didn’t mean to go. Even when they don’t, I know
I ought to know there’s something seriously wrong.

But then we talk, just talk, en route to station, train.
For instance Cader, who misses home, he has a sister there.
Or Eleasidni, who says he’s known as ‘Sidney’ and shows me
‘Sidney’ on his phone. They ask for nothing. I give nothing.
Small talk – where we’ve been tonight or where we’re from,
what’s different there. I’m thinking con, chancer,

still ready to kick and run, still puzzled over what it is
this young man hopes to gain, but then there’s ‘Safe journey’,
‘Nice to meet you’ and smiles and holding or shaking hands.
When I’m alone, I check my bag and nothing’s gone. Perhaps,
old as I am, I never acquired – or lost? – whatever it is they want.
They have lovely skin. Nice eyes. The softest brown.

Anne Stewart

in collection, The Janus Hour, 2010, Oversteps Books,
ISBN 978-1-906856-16-8

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Take my Hand

I’ll take you to an island, any
Greek island town with winding
uphill paths, and as we reach
the highest, steepest bend,
steady yourself. Catch your breath
and turn, be careful of your footing, the stones
are loosening in the crumbling earth,
and there it is:
the line of trees,
the simple line of trees
I want to show you.

So small, so far, you hardly know
what shape they are, though these nearby
amongst those terraces perhaps you recognise
as olives? The green of these is soft,
exquisite to the touch and eye, if eyes
could feel the things they see.

I holiday much less these days.
But that isn’t what I miss you for,
those little Englands, lazy Autumn evenings
in the Spanish islands.

You never could have tried these paths
– never would have chosen to –
left tired by all your own old steepnesses;
but the far trees, see, before the dark light falls,
how they glisten like sapphires
setting off the world.
I wish …  That is …
I just wanted to show you
something beautiful.

Anne Stewart

in collection, The Janus Hour, 2010, Oversteps Books,
ISBN 978-1-906856-16-8

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