KEEP YOUR SOCIAL DISTANCE
in public at least
Moments
you are there
you are there in the silence between heartbeats
always there in the expectant peace between tide-driven waves
I see you there in the velvet spaces between the snow and the pines
I hear you there – as has often been heard – between the fading notes of birdsong
I know you there
I feel you there
and so
and so
you are always there
I hear you there
I hear you there
as has often been heard
between the fading notes of birdsong
I’m not afraid, he shouted
KEEP YOUR DISTANCE
he shouted
as though afraid I would hug or kiss or touch him
I’M NOT AFRAID
he shouted
I see you there
I see you there
in the velvet spaces
between the snow and pines
the colour of the sand
the colour of the sand beneath the water
as the sunbeam splits and rainbow lights
the colour of the free-seen sky
and that imagined behind the single cloud
the colour of wishes and desire
I cannot fill my heart with words
I cannot fill my heart with words
but still I try
Aren’t you happy mum?
Nineteen ninety five. We did not know it was the last VE Day that mum would see. There was a party in the street. Mum was indoors crying.
Aren’t you happy mum? We won. That’s why we’re celebrating. We won, we won and you were there. It’s party time.
Don’t celebrate for me. It was not “fun”. A day of sad relief perhaps. It took my cousin, my uncle, your grandad for six years, his health for the rest of his life and what should have been my youth.
Twenty five years on and I see the celebrations on tv and remember mum and the others and I wonder.
Washing up
The ex-boxer looked down at his red thick-jointed hands emerging from the soapy water. So it had come to this. He shook his head, the spirit rising in his chest again. The door opened. “Hurry up Grandad, we want to go to the park!” He smiled and wiped his hands.
Stones fall
stones fall in rivers to her leather-strapped feet
thunder from earth and far beyond sky
she weeps, coughs, as dust grits her teeth
faces the eastern hill and sees the sun rise
simonsalento 