Follows me into the bus

It sits on my hair

Like a sad ghost

It smells like something

I must have lost

I count my fingers

Carefully

after Lorca

The pale sun turned her face

when the wind came to rape me

Cows crying for their calves

in the black Suffolk fields

fell silent as stars

I let his broad hands

push me high on my swing

He lifted my Sooty-and-Sweep

blue dirndl skirt

and whispered of oceans

and aeroplanes

The wind lived in my pillow

blew through my dreams

He followed when I pedalled

hard down to Folkestone

took the number 10 bus

met gypsies in Hastings

He lifted me from the white towers

where the English live

We drove the magpie road

to Uzbekistan, took ponies

through the Amazon

fed white peacocks at Shangri-La

I tried to escape him, descended

the earth’s dark centre

washed my wounds in red rivers

emerged, clear and clean as a lily

but he was there to reclaim me

flashing his sword in his fury

Bright angels vanished

as he moistened my lips

with gin and warm milk

quickened the waves on the sea

tied my ankles to the moon

My violator, my warm wind

taunts me

with gardens and marmalade

He makes me beg for it

for Saharas

Siberias

A constellation of blue eyes

              That cannot look this way

An insistent name, calling out

              With nothing at all to say

A frilled and speckled counterpane

              With no small soul asleep

A dancing, posing prettiness

              And no lock of hair to keep

A scattering of loveliness

              Which won’t take shape nor grow

I’ll remember you who never were

              Who can neither come nor go.

under billowing dunes. Sand blew in

blanketed the churches,

silenced the oratories and stilled the bell.

These are saints without armies,

drifting in on leaves or shells or stones,

their voices soft and strong and long as wind,

hearts smooth and white as bone.

There’s no Augustinian turning from the world -

no need when world is a muddy path

with primroses, squat trees, deep creeks,

clefts in the cliffs and running surf.

Here, bracken censes the holy wells

and pilgrims bring their private fears.

Torn rags hanging from the twigs

are damp with moss and prayers and tears.

Winds get ready to blow away the sand

and toll the bell for the limbless child.

The saints will rise and arm themselves

with gentleness, seek out the wells,

surprised to see, shimmering in dark water,

their half-forgotten face again

and there, among the heavy fronds, 

miracles trickling with the rain.