*
Mountain Ana made the phone scream.
Squeal of a thousand and one pigs!
Fingers of pain…
Scratch my brain.
She is upset that Gramps has traded her ring.
‘Soz, Mountain Ana.’ …
*
When Gramps turned up wearing
Nancy’s gold ring,
Jenny thought it was a hoot.
Her hoot-face is for the moment still.
It possesses a distant smile.
Intuition – ‘just like Becky’s hoot-face.’
*
Becky’s sulk-face is adamant with indignation.
If she only knew how perilous it is to neglect the young.
*
…Our roles are reversed for the tale
of mum and dad and a kitchen knife,
which Fiona tells in sobs on the stairway.
*
Something I said has recalled her
feather streaked cheeks of pain.
*
She laughs
and we go on up
to talk about
a tennis ball
turned inside out…
*
Becky speaks quietly
but her quiet voice banishes
distance like a shout,
“Josh, come back inside.”
*
Is this redemption, or merely the wisdom
of being old enough to know better?
*
With almost perfect symmetry little Josh
wants to take some flowers back to Mum.
*
He plucks from the two Laburnum
grown together over a garden gate:
harmonious estate,
or the strain of embrace,
stretching… to cleave?
The scent from the cups is intoxicating,
and yellow, Becky’s colour…
*
O’ my tyger tree,
your blossom
will spread that smile
over lips which profess to disdain flowers.
*
…On the way back Josh has an idea: he wants to visit his Dad.
*
Regardless of content, our most intense moments have a habit of assuming ritual clarity.
Together, the figures our characters cut are colourful, and bright, and amusing;
the wheel-spinning white car which your mother read about in my story,
or Roma’s amber earrings,
Louise and Paula, uncharacteristically, dressed in black.
*
Gemma,
who plays football,
and for whom love… is too painful?
*
Did I really say that?
She wants to travel, or that?
‘Me too! ’/ ‘that’s how I drink’/ ‘I do.
*
If only it,
and you,
and I
were true!
*
Even Sandra
mimicking my mudra,
and Mimi’s mint.
*
In sleep
I strike a
Centaur dead…
*
The blow
reverberates
in my head…
*
For a time
I cannot face
the open sale of lace.
*
Becky is beautiful
but kind and cruel,
in turns.
*
Her eyes flash when I call her a vamp,
and when I bad mouth her boyfriend.
“You make me laugh,” she says, “can I kill you?”
*
She has the hair of a teenage friend,
the eyes of an old love, the profile and
features of a desirable aunt, the body of
the goddess Parvati, and a smile like paradise.
*
Her mischief resembles that of a childhood adversary.
“I’m going to turn you into an ass,” she smiles.
*
Her hoot-face is reserved for her most cunning lies,
“I thought I’d see you there,” yet she still
succeeds in soothing the situation.
*
‘Does she really sleep with him?’
*
“I’m sorry about your Grandad,”
she says, like Mum at such times.
*
Warmth floods the room…
*
Gemma’s warmth as
she links my arm and
the world stops screaming…
*
You are an island dark with life;
A swan-hatched dream, taking flight;
A blue-shot cormorant, nestled in night.
*
Gemma’s warmth when she talks about
the sort of house she wants, her bottom
drawer, and the colour of Christmas decorations.
*
The warmth of a smile
when I look at her crotch:
earth / urge / air / care.
*
O’ for another storm stressed day,
when the sky spoke and
our world yielded… to rain.
*
‘I could have run much faster.’
‘You should have been here over Christmas.’
*
Of all the things
I’ll never get chance to do…
*
“So when do I get that drink you owe me?”
“Soon…”
*
The warmth of silence as she threads the eye of a needle.
*
“I like your owl.”
“It’s Minoan.”
*
It would have been a privilege
to spend
the rest of my days
here, forever.
*
Never.
*
It never was
so good,
again?
France & Vincent 