Polaroid Pictures

They fell out of the flimsy envelope
with its exotic triangular stamps –
small square snapshots of her teacher son
posed on ruins, under palm trees, glass in hand.
 
Libya was unexpected, but Arabs, she supposed,
had money, could pay a good wage.
More of an adventure, more up his street
than a Croydon comprehensive.
 
Every month or so more photos of palm trees,
a few scribbled words, short on facts.
Then phone-calls from strangers. Did she have
his address? Some dropped hints about cash.
 
After Christmas, his mother, thumbing through photos
to make up for getting no card,
for no word having come for a while,
 
found them yellowing, blurring,
tanned face fading, disappearing
 
into palm trees, ruins, sand.
 

Jennie Osborne

in pamphlet collection Reconstructing a Brother, Wylde Publications, 2024,
ISBN 978-0-9545474-6-2

 
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Rebellion

These dandelions – no show girls
but they know how to pop up
where they’re not wanted
go on, do your worst
on tarmac and paving stone
Parliament Square, Waterloo Bridge
padlocked into earth with combination roots
go on, arrest me
not ashamed to flaunt
the green rosette around their petals
rewilding the conurbation
raising the question of offence
with ranks of blue lawnmowers
doing their job, keeping order.
 
And in the borders, doing what they do
and in orchards and gardens beyond
the healing herbs, berry bushes,
apple and peartrees sending their fruit –
in every open space, every town centre
they’re flowering in solidarity
clematis clinging on, geraniums
making a statement, even
under the hedges, a host
of violets quietly clicking send.
 

Jennie Osborne

in collection Signals From the Other, Dempsey and Windle, 2022,
ISBN 978-1-913-32974-7

 
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And the Wolf

     after Kim Moore ‘And the Soul’
 
And the wolf
if she is to know herself
must sense into synapse and sinew,
 
limbs and skin,
find what manner of beast
she is hiding in
 
learn her pack, and the rules of her pack,
just which lines she must scent
smothered under snow
 
exactly how her hide
will be torn from her body
for a paw out of place
 
the precise degree of cower,
when to roll over and submit,
offering her belly to their teeth.
 
She must learn her howl,
practise it in silence
not to lose it in the chorus
 
be ready for the night
she takes her own track
into the wilderness of her self.
 

Jennie Osborne

published in The High Window, Summer, 2021;
and in collection Signals From the Other, Dempsey and Windle, 2022,
ISBN 978-1-913-32974-7

 
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Garden Lessons

There is more than one way
of calling in the seed. A woman may sit
in a garden of young blossoms showing
their faces to sun for the first time, and wait
for words to take root. Soil knows
the spell of waiting just as the robin
knows the right time to peck his future
from the pebbled path.
 
Outside the trellised fence, the frontline
of everyday commits its careless tragedies
and restless feet itch to soldier
in its last chance campaign.
 
There is more than one way
of banging the drum for the right to be alive.
A woman might sit, on an hour’s furlough,
letting a lime green nugget germinate
in her mind’s mulched maze, look up and see
pinpricks of tomorrow’s colour peppering
the raked earth.
 
Outside a horsebox is towed from one
worn field to another, while a radio without
a time signature waltzes on in ignorance
of the five o’clock news.
 
There is more than one way
of dipping into the weed-threaded pool
of stillness. Sometimes a woman might
carry it with her on the streets, a prayer
behind a drum. Sometimes it is her hand
that marches over a page, each word
exploding, a grenade of fearless roses,
over the futile fence.
 

Jennie Osborne

published in The Friend, November 2023

 
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