A Walk into Light
Midnight trails between my toes, I
pace the garden’s perimeter, as if
mapping a treasure hunt, squirrelling
eggs. This is not my home.
From each plant: a leaf, a petal
uncurled onto my tongue like wafer.
Each a new word: joy, forgiveness
silence. I pause for Fibonacci to show
himself in leaflets, stamens
– me –
expound infinite scriptures
across my tongue.
Through the dark I taste a
nettle-green promise.
Blossom melts, hope-flavoured
as fleeting as sky.
All the Skin I Have
Did you cut your teeth on
the injustice of it all?
Was the answer always too far
away, never a long enough stick
to hand?
Did they mock you?
For the sounds and smells
nights you wound it all about you like
a pain to be crushed, squeezed into
submission?
They have all left their marks.
Brands, tattoos, scars, each
and every one invisible.
Making Jelly
From the pick when we weaved together
meeting at prickled ends, smiles stained
to the smush and squash, the squeeze of
a scarlet muslin, hung like a stick-bladder
dripping, syrupy, into the Mason Cash. I
never really asked what, why; watched you
like telly and asked to squidge the fruit bag:
worse than a nappy, a bleed, sating enough
for a onetimeonly into the bowl. I think of
it now, pressing sauce lumps with the
back of a spoon. It feels like a lesson.