We soon learned
my touch crumpled you to paper;
no more embraces. It wasn’t fair
to twist your tears to ink,
to fill my pen with the turned-down
corners of your lips. One kiss
left lines on your face,
and it was all I could do to keep
from scrawling poetry
across the blank space,
to spread blue across the silence,
a flood of explanations.

Forgive me. I’m a creature of many words
and you fit better in my pocket
when you’re on paper. I can make you cruel,
if I wish- justify the crack across your spine-
or tender when the muses call for love.
But now I see the tissue of your neck,
ink blots like bruises. I was too eager.
You were too beautiful. And now you’re blowing
like newspaper on a wind I didn’t write,
unfolding into a sonnet
that never knew your name.

Skin

My skin is pink, skinned fish,
fingers pick pick scratch flakes to floor
thin as snow. There must
there must be a better colour
beneath all this thick rubber stuff,
pale tangles of hair. I would tug
tug them from me like cobwebs
strip this skin. There must
be a brighter colour beneath,
something silver
something you would take and slip
around your neck. Sometimes in sun
there’s a flicker like a fish swimming
beneath my nails, a flash
like a twist in water,
a blink of glittered eyelid. Then the search
for a crack in skin, a zip,
an escape from clumsy limbs
these wrinkles, cracked heels.
And the itch, furious fingers
cascading skin slivers
circling feet. Until I am red
and naked as love, stilled
by the dream of shuffling out
of a suit of pores,
and sliding into the day
easily as water.

Daddy

I drew you as an animal;
it was a lie. You never lost your mind,
not completely, simply forgot it on occasion
down the side of the bed,
on the kitchen table.
Soap in the mouths of little girls,
and all our furniture sold.

I strip photographs, hunting for claws.
A beating in the clasp of your hand, a shout
at the crease of your smile.
Your skin is smooth. I hate you for it.
The halo of curls, blue eyes.

Let there be a hint of coarse hair,
a curse coiled on your tongue,
ready to pounce. Laughter is no use to me:
give me a bottle in your hand,
or at least, a balled fist.

I’ll swallow such cliché more readily
than that handsome man in his wedding suit,
piggy backs, the photo of you
fixing an angel on the Christmas tree.

Drop it, now. How dare you.
Pick up something
more appropriate: a bruise, a coat,
a haunch of someone’s heart.

Jonathan

We knew that he was dying
but it was a hazy kind of knowing,
blind and fuzzy round the edges.
We continued to tussle over the handlebars
of his wheelchair, parade his smile proudly
around the playground. We knew the trail of silver coins
spelling out his name would save him;
we had faith in their magic.
There was no place for death,
no colour crayon to draw him with.
He didn’t fit in our lunchboxes,
we whipped him away with skipping ropes,
sealed his eyes with glitter glue.

We would ring the entire school with ten-cent hopes
if we had to; in the end, we nearly did.
By that time all that remained of him
was a thin shrub with a small white plaque,
bound tight with black netting to keep vandals at bay.
Frail green thumbnails of leaves. And the memory
of crying on the classroom carpet
as the hometime songs were sung,
his clumsy embrace, a kiss on my cheek.
I don’t remember why I cried
but I remember the boxing-glove red of his hair,
the way he never mentioned the word disease

(Skin was previously published in The Pomegranate Ezine)

Cadaverine Magazine 2009