I saw my opening and sped up. Unfortunately, so did she. Our bumpers kissed in the car park. She wound down her window and I fell.
Moments
Horse years
Horse years run faster than human years, you’ve seen that boy, haven’t you? Yessir, though, now you’ve finally caught me up. You’re 25 now, 25! And me nearer 80 than not. Not long to go maybe. What say we jump that one last canyon? What say? Let’s go.
Search
“I still haven’t….” The object of his heart’s desire swam mistily into view. “Found you” he said, focussed on the barman’s hand.
Gasp
The ‘g’ of ‘goodbye’ caught in her throat like a gasp. She could not say it. Through the train window he was checking his phone.
Reflex training
For reflex training he held a sheet of A4 paper vertically between his palms, opened them sharply and caught it again. He moved on through 2, 3, 5, 10 sheets. When he got to a whole pack, he dropped it and broke his toe. He didn’t tell anyone.
Bone
He was 95kg of lean meat on the bone but, when her love’s silver dart lodged by his scarred heart, soft eyes began again to smile.
I said to my mother
I said to my mother that poetry was power, that the voice of the young would ring clear in the spring. She told me to get up and put some clothes on, I was missing the best part of the day.
Stone
He opened his fist. One of the pebbles was gone. He pulled a dollar out of the air. He saw my gun and showed me how it was done.
Nineteen
Nineteen. Nineteen years today.
If I had had children, you would not have seen them grow up. They would have been a twinkle, a gentle belly swelling, an arrival with tears and cries of joy, school and scabs and scars and almost good enough for the football teams and the ukelele band.
The clothes you knitted they would have worn with love then exasperation and then with a retro swing of the scarf. You would have wiped their eyes when they fell, their noses when they fell ill, their eyes again when they fell in love. You would have been Nan, then Bet for a dare, then Nan to hear the secrets they would not have told me.
And now, nineteen years later, they would have been grown, and away alone, and always on the phone to hear your voice. I miss you mum, for me and for the children I never had.
Ice
Call them ice, rocks, diamonds. Or what your sugar boy calls them. That’s what Aki had been told. But he got it wrong and paid.
