Moments

A sign of life

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A sign

a sign

of life

of life

is all

is all

I need

[pause]

is all

is all

is all

I need

[pause]

is all

is all

is all I need

[pause]

A sign of life

of life

is all I need

is all

is all

is all I need

 

[pause]

[pause]

[pause]

 

A sign

a sign

of love

of love

is all

is all

I ask

[pause]

is all

is all

is all

I ask

[pause]

is all

is all

is all I ask

[pause]

A sign of love

of love

is all I ask

is all

is all

is all I ask

 

[pause]

[pause]

[pause]

 

A song

a song

of love

of love

is all

is all

I have

[pause]

is all

is all

is all

I have

[pause]

is all

is all

is all I have

[pause]

A song of love

of love

is all I have

is all

is all

is all I have

 

A song of love is all I have

 

 

St Andrew’s Square in the sun (2)

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A woman with a night-black ponytail strides across the square, one arm cradling a ginger-headed baby, the other hand holding a parasol. The shade falls carefully on the babe. The woman squints as she passes the young boy crosslegged on the grass. His gaze, and face, follow the crane’s reaching sweep across the sky and he gently overbalances, a portrait of surprise. Now, lying on his back as the grass tickles his ear, he listens to the tick-ticking of the sculpture students chip-chipping at their stone. Tourists, each with two bags, stop heavily by the sculptors and smile. Their holiday is beginning.

St Andrew’s Square in the sun

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Dusty-haired men lie on hi-vis vests on the grass, their hard hats an orgy of albino tortoises. A woman in silver court shoes is distraught as she drips low-cal mayonnaise down her top; the couple next to her are too engrossed in each other to notice. People wonder who that dog belongs to; and why it is wearing a muzzle. Others wonder if that smell can be what they think it is or whether someone’s lotion is cannabis-laced. A man frowns but continues writing in his small black notebook as the woman behind him reads out her credit card number and security code. He looks around guiltily, trying to say with his expression that he is a writer and he was taking notes before she even sat down. He puts the notebook down on the grass, face-up, so that she can see what he has written. She does not look round. He has no choice but to leave. As he stands, he feels his face burning. Perhaps it is the sun.

 

Rest. Sleep. Recover.

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Rest.   Sleep.   Recover.
Rest.   Tea.   Sleep.   Recover.
Rest.   Tea.   Sleep.   Coffee.   Recover.
Rest.   Tea.   Cake.   Sleep.   Coffee.   Cake.   Recover.
Rest.   Sleep.   Recover.

And I will be there to hold you.

Evening in Naples

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Ross leaned on the sill and looked out of the open evening window, called by the swifts. They swerved above, katana wings cutouts against the dipping sun; below, silhouettes of scythes sped across the late-drying sheets that hung from the balconies. He had seen them at home, where the Water reached the northern sea, but here they tumbled in shrieking crowds between the close red buildings and across the shining bay. He could go and get his camera or – no, perhaps not. It was enough to see them, and hear their bosun whistles, and remember them. His heart was of the sea and his hands of the sun; their cries were in his ears, and he smiled.

There would be another morning

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I got up this morning but my shadow stayed in bed. I walked through the sunshine in the front room, turned on the bathroom light – nothing.

Where was she? (I think of her as she.) I lifted the duvet but there was nobody there – just a deep indentation where I had slept alone.

She had to be somewhere – I think I may have said out loud. I turned all the lights out and felt that she was there. I turned them on again.

I closed my eyes and that worked too. I could feel her there, the warm darkness of trust. I kept my eyes tight shut and got back into bed.

There would be another morning, there would be some other light.

Strings

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When the shaven-headed nun tied coloured strings around my wrist, I cried.

The strings stayed tied tight for months. Sometimes they tangled with my watchstrap. Sometimes, after rain or a bath, their dampness reminded me they were there.

One day it came to me that it would soon be time to take them off. I could do it any time, any place, but a need for pattern, for meaning, made me decide to wait until April 25th. Why then? Liberation Day in Italy. How is that relevant to strings around my wrist? It is not. But it is a date that is remembered, printed on the calendar in the same colour as one of the strings. The other was the yellow of Mediterranean daisies.

The morning of the 25th, still wet from the shower, I held out my arm and the strings were cut off. If I had had an open fire, I would have burnt them. They would have hissed and curled and disappeared in smoke and ash. But I did not have a fire, though it was cold that Liberation Day, so I dropped them in the bin.

I still think about them, and the sobbing. My arm still feels bare.