Gap Year

Le Soir a la Fenetre
( Chagall 1950)

Tangled in my underwater arms
drowning in seaweed green
you turn your head towards the open window
breathe deep draughts of cool lilac air,
ready yourself to dive into the road
which flows between our houses
curls away like a sea-serpent’s tail
swallowed by night.

High in the blueberry sky
a purple breasted phoenix
calls you to fly before the moon has waned,
for you are made of thistledown.
White puffs of smoke, left luminous in its wake
promise you even I will rise again
when you are fledged and flown.
A fresh new moon will slip its sliver
into the indigo dusk.

Embryo

Unhappiness curls in me
tight as a foetus
sucks its thumb and turns
an astronaut’s slow somersault,
kicks a little, just to warn me.

It doesn’t show yet
but I can hear it growing,
flexing its fingers
listening to the muffled world,
eyes wide open in the reddening gloom.

I wonder, like a schoolgirl with a secret,
how this monstrous birth
may be averted.

Demeter

When you tuck your daughter on the train
and watch her wan face slide into the night
and you are left upon the platform
with your tears, so small within your skin,
shrunk to a whisper as love pulls away;
you turn towards the tube’s wide mouth
descending to the hot rebreathing air,
knowing how simple it would be
to ride the escalator into Hades’ flames
if you had just a whisker of a chance
to bring her back with you.

Spotlight

Dispel my disbelief God,
focus your spotlight on the one
among those teeming masses,
pick her out, illuminate her path.

Coracle

I sew a sturdy coracle of words
woven with spells and caulked in luck,
speed it down rivers of night
to rock you in the lapping waves.

May

May doesn’t give a damn about our squally nights
and overwork, and dusty city streets;

she sparks up candles on the chestnut trees
exuberant as Christmas in the suburbs,

spreads luminous blue-bells and forget-me-nots
in dappled twilight underneath the trees,

allows the don’t-care dandelions and celandines
to riot on grass verges with the daisies,

hangs cherry trees with bridesmaids’ posies
painting the earth with petals, candy pink,

unfolds each ripe and bursting sticky bud
to fingers of fine-drawn lime leaves,

hides creamy mob-cap bells of lily of the valley
swirling their perfume in the shadowy nooks,

lets hawthorn snow-drift in the hedgerows,
unseasonable whiteness weighing down the boughs

soaks up the blackbird’s song in elder flowers
hoarding its sweetness, ready to release in wine,

waves trees’ defiant branch-loads at the clouds
to say, “We’re still here. We survived the worst,”

and oh, she hurls the purple scent of lilac and wisteria
onto the wind, summoning you home.