Our parents are the weight in the keel of our life, slowing us down we shout, keeping you steady they say. When they are gone we can swerve, we skim faster on the tips of the waves; we can tilt our masts and fall. We hope they have left lifeboats.
Sam died just outside the ladies’ changing rooms
Sam died just outside the ladies’ changing rooms, sitting on one of those padded plastic benches where the bored husbands wait to say everything looks lovely. He was watching a woman walk by carrying champagne flutes and a Christmas sweater when the pain started and his heart stopped. None of the men noticed anything different until Felicity emerged in her potential party dress and, smiling apologetically at those who had survived him, gave the slumping Sam a poke.
The commotion in the department store exploded then soon calmed; they almost seemed used to it. Inside Felicity’s head the commotion lasted much, much longer. Hours later she found herself sitting on the edge of her bed, her sensible coat draped around her bare shoulders. She shrugged it off. Somehow she was still wearing the sparkling black party dress. She stood and looked at herself in the mirror, turned one shoulder and reached round to pull down the zip. It had jammed. She almost, almost, called out for Sam then cried as if she would never stop.
My job (1)
My job? I wipe the dirt from the faces of angels. Sometimes the beauty is lessened and I cry.
The headless man
The headless man strides down the road towards me. Sure, decided steps. Then the streetlight behind him shines through his umbrella. Relief.
Feet slide together
Feet slide together then slip slowly, unstoppably, apart – the fence stops his fall. Families in red gloves, blue scarves, skate past him as he clings to the rough-painted wood. She sees him clinging there, still slipping, and feels a warm rush: “I’ll skate with you”. She takes his elbow.
You smile
You smile; slow sunrise
warms across my frozen heart –
now, forever, summer.
Scratch and lick
Boy meets girl and girl meets boy.
Honey, perhaps undercut with a lemon premonition.
Girl and boy turn and walk away.
An aftertaste of old saccharine.
Boy and girl, alone; girl and boy.
Thick curtain odour of whisky, rum and yesterday’s cigarettes.
Girl and boy catch glimpses across a crowded room.
Memories of rich red wine in glinting glasses.
Boy and girl leave crowded room, alone.
Eyestinging chilli till the morning light but no vinegar dream regrets.
Or perhaps, perhaps, a flavour.
Flames danced
The stranger looked past Kelly as the fire cleaned, hollowed, scoured the building. Flames danced in his dark eyes.
Kelly could not look away. The flames flickered higher and higher, the spinning blue lights behind her lit and shadowed his face.
Later, the sun coming up behind him darkened his face. The fire was dead but still they stood there, flames in his eyes still flaring.
He pulled the hood closer. He lifted her cold hand to his lips and blew gently on it. Time stopped. Blackness.
The stranger’s fingers were still linked with hers, the sun still rising. He began to walk away from the black dead building. Kelly followed and they ran side by side, fingers still locked together.
On the wasteland beyond the not yet burnt buildings they stopped, breathed heavily, the flames in Kelly’s eyes reflected in the stranger’s.
“Gonna do another one the mornin’?”
“Aye.”
Hot tub
In the hot tub at the gym, a charming older gentleman asked Jon if he liked cruising. It eventually turned out he meant on ships. Awkward.
“One! Two!”
The wheels of the roller-coaster car creaked as the boys stepped off the ladder. They brushed the old birds’ nests from the faded shallow seats and wedged themselves in. “One! Two!” What looked like miles below, the first fire trucks arrived. The car lurched forward. Timmy saw his mother’s face.
simonsalento 