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2nd
Prize winner Poetry London Poetry Competition, 2005
and
published in Poetry London 52, Autumn 2005
Paradise Lost at the Lipstick Factory
How many weeks of
lunch hours did it take
sitting
in the yard with a small brown book?
My
only taste of daylight between
the
morning and the evening bus along the bypass.
Story
of angels and abstractions—absences
more
real than the women at the conveyor belt,
daughters
of the fall. The homely women:
wives,
mothers, engaged girls. And me,
shy
and silent, circumnavigating the cosmos,
practising
exam answers in my head.
Did
my lips move (unkissed and naked)?
I
might have learned more from the bright-mouthed gossip.
Down
the travelling belt the little waxy pillars
process
like something serious. Our quick fingers
pick
and fit them, badged with our sweat and imprints,
into
their plastic. On they glide, to pass
through
gates of purifying flame that gloss them
to
symbols of desire—all your
fault, Eve—
dissatisfactions
of mankind, unruly longings—
as
I have read in the factory yard among the smokers
and
chattering girls from the mixing room, their hands
and
overalls stained every colour of geranium.
Chris Considine
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