I’ll always remember how you were

coming into town to meet us browless, lashless

a pale, blue cloche covering

the glossed gourd of your scalp

smoothed as though some French polisher

had gone to work on it.

Then, weeks later, laughing with us

inspecting the slow return of hair,

signs and wonders of your resurgent body

entering remission, five years for certainty,

and us biting on our scones, wondering

if we could hold our breath that long.

top

When the first one appeared

she didn’t worry and only a little

at the second which sat

just above the other on the left ear.

The perforated eyebrow

was followed closely by the nose.

Still she did not speak.

The chin, the cheek were punctured.

      The swimming pool

revealed the stapled nipple, navel.

She tried to forget the mutilation

of that neonatal flesh fresh

from her womb,

how she’d suckled and sluiced

its defenceless succulence

tender as a young chicory leaf

how she’d powdered the skin,

slicked cream over it, guarded it

night and day from sun and wind,

stroked the unblemished lobes

to procure sleep,

washed the umbilicus

      until this metallic outbreak

marked a carapace

that twinkled the distance

of final severance.

top

Its good to hear you smile

someone says to his mobile

and I think how I’ll ring you,

eavesdrop on your expression

as it grows in my ear

from the first twitch

of the corners of your mouth

through the slow, upward motion

of all the muscles it takes

to hoist your cheekbones and lips

full stretch while I listen

to the wide, silent crescent

drum-roll at the sound of my voice.

top

As I close the door and sit,

the question’s already there,

and a concern that brings a burn of tears.  

Have you ever had unprotected sex?  

Well, yes….

there was that man who exposed himself to me

when I was ten years old.  The unsolicited portrayal

of violation I read, that book with its smudge

of nastiness still clanging my nerves.  The film

that promised uncomplicated leisure but left a trail

of troubled images for me to dream, the snatch

of news still rolling in my head, a child’s subjection,

death, fast, factual that out-paced the ‘off’ button.  

The shuffled deck of stripped innocence,

items unasked for and unsought, all qualify, I guess.  

I just never expected anyone to care  

so, thank you lavatory door for being there.

published in anthology, Night Balancing, 2006,

Blinking Eye.

top

© of all poems featured on this site remains with the poet
site feedback welcome