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prizewinner
in the Poetry London Competition;
published
in collection, Ghost-Walking, 2004,
Smith/Doorstop Books,
ISBN 978-1-902382-65-4
Ghost-Walking
Losing
our way we have to stop
in
the centre of a forest,
black
pines against the midnight ink.
I
switch off the engine,
listening
in the silence for the coast
as
the lights and radio die.
Climbing
from sweat and seats
to
stretch my cramp,
I
walk into the shadows,
release
myself deep into the trees,
the
urine steam
lifting
the menthol of sap.
Feeling
my way back to the car,
I
return for my small son
slumped
forward in the seat-belt sling,
yoke
my arms under his
and
raise him from sleep,
as
if to save him from drowning.
Resting
his bare feet on the toes of my boots
I
ghost-walk him along the track-
one
silhouette inside another.
And
as he leans forward against my arm
like
the figurehead of a ship,
I
undo his flies and whisper-
please
pee now, it is so late,
you’re
already too heavy for me-
and
with the sleep-wriggle of his mouth
the
surge of his flow
spreads
through the forest.
This
strange heritage in my arms,
his
small cock
creates
another flow into the unknown:
a
man makes a man
to
piss further into the dark.
I
guide him back into his flies
and
stagger as two puppets
back
to the car,
flick
his drops from my hand
and
can hear now the sea.
Stephen Duncan
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