snapshot

snapshot

 

he feels convinced that if he just keeps watching

he will see her turn away from the party

from the unseen person who is making her laugh

see her leave the kitchen and make her way

up the dark narrow staircase

there would be a creak near the top

she would tiptoe along the landing

to his bedroom door   left ajar

streetlight washed against the curtains

to watch him sleeping

 

and though he is awake

he doesn’t open his eyes

he doesn’t know why   so

somehow she’s still watching and

she’s still in the kitchen still laughing

at that joke of someone unseen   happy

the light still streaming through the aperture

into the now unshuttered eye   transforming

the chemical memory of time’s camera   

he still listens for the sound

that creak of a stair

a footstep coming up, a footstep going down

she’ll be there always now 

At some point

 At some point

 

he moved into the attic of himself

taking a sliver of a broken mirror

some string a knife and a torch

 

leaving a framed photograph of himself

centre-squared on the living room wall

facing the window where the world carried on

 

in the photo he was twenty-one face fair

undefeated   in good bodily health

with all to come and still to be done  so there

 

in the poor soothing light of the loft

he would angle to catch the soft dregs of sunshine

he would measure the reduction of shadows

 

in knotted lengths slicing through time

he would illuminate the rucked surface of dark corners

the seduction of how crooked timber lies

 

and he would remember nothing straight

still seeing through a young man’s eyes

the beauty cornered   startled   the fear   the hate

Bematist

 

Bematist   

 

Sisyphus calculating counting

pacing taking the measure of

the world from Alexandria

to the here and now sees

the shadow reducing

along the curvature

of the earth only

then to light up

the darkness

a moment

of water

caught

a well

slick

and

an

I

1

reflected on a shimmering surface   staring back   gone

Sisyphus

Eratosthenes

Bematist

broken

 

broken

 

after the party

where something had happened

something in a cupboard some permission

something that made him think his luck was in

he walks her home in the rain

walking together alone

up the long slow hill of Ashby Lane

him wanting his end of the unspoken bargain

to begin   her wandering to the end of her skin

 

a passing car’s headlights picks them out

the sudden change of size   then gone  

then the slow turning turning away   

of the unseen driver’s eyes 

     

suddenly she too wants it done with

she can’t explain can’t put it into words

the submission

she’s falling under the wheels again

letting him lead her on

towards the slow uncoiling of humiliation

where she has to pay out enough rope

something is to be given   taken

through a gate   down a garden path

half-lit under trees   down on her already

tattered coat spread beneath them   

underneath them the cold slippery cement

of somebody’s property   somebody’s dream

some other family’s sleeping lamentable darkness

they sell themselves   each other   cheaply   as broken

his eyes are shut tight      hers are wide open   starless

Souvenir

Souvenir

 

There is upstairs in the spare room

in a cupboard upon a shelf

out of reach and gathering dust

a broken jar

which he can no longer fill

with salves such as pity, love, hope or self

 

The skin and what is within is dry and cracked,

the conscience flaked, peeled away, still

the view from the window is of a raw sky

bloody   flayed   glorious    of and in itself 

on bright days

 

On bright days

This self she is supposed to have

where is it?

It comes mostly on bright days

when her mind is content

to be itself in her body   a foot within a shoe

with room to wriggle the toes  

to take a step forward

On bright days

no shadows on the wall of the ordinary skin

that which she has always been wrapped in

broken and bound like a Chinese foot

sliced and scarred  like a circumcision

a rare flower torn out at the root

that somehow survives

the self she has been promised

by all those other selves that surround her

those clean-cut sharp-edged provocations

she’s a spoon in a drawer full of knives

we all want to be knives

This self she has promised herself

a present that she has carefully wrapped

written and erased

on parchment   each layer a palimpsest

a present that is yet come   yet to be   yet to be opened

in a year full of Januaries   of doors warped shut

bending   of beginnings disguised as endings

On bright days

when words fit more comfortably in the mouth   on the tongue

when looking forward tastes more hopeful than looking back

and what could be said could be sung  

The folding

 

The folding

 

She calls him out   into the garden

it’s late afternoon   early autumn   sunshine

two sheets   two duvet covers   two pillow cases

sailing in the warm breeze held aloft by wooden clothes line props

two peaceful fully-rigged galleons on untroubled seas

one set a fading red   the other white stained pink

against a cloudless blue sky

 

These are the steps to the dance, the folding:

 

she walks towards him arms held out

an embrace or an invitation to a fight

their eyes stare into these possibilities

he looks away first   Always him

then the exchange of corners   a little clumsy

with the touch of skin against skin   the intimacies 

of strangers   of familiarity   of fingers   lingers

the music the colour of original sin

he steps away steps back pulling the sheet taut

now they are fish caught on a line   hooked

frozen   wanting to tear themselves free

 

Yet somehow it seems to them both   both sweet and sour

this favourite day   these minutes   the fleeting seconds   at this hour