The summer’s slowly dying, here. My heart
Already mourns
Her eyes are sapphires, lost their lustre
Long ago
Her every breath is like the tide
Drawing out
Longer, deeper, silent – reaches for
A further shore
The coolness in her fingertips began
To creep higher
They gave us blankets for her final days,
Keep her here
A little longer
Every moment, she leaves me behind.
But I cannot leave her.
For summer, and for Mother.
for Guy
Who are we, that we came to be here?
Stardust children, diamonds in our worth,
Driftwood of a tidal atmosphere
Just fell to earth
What is she, brown mother, cool and soft,
To send green branches dancing up above?
A cabbage white in dalliance aloft,
Silent as love
Where is this, the fingerprints of leaves,
The footprint stones, an open sky so clear?
She makes a home for he who first believes:
We are here.
The little thing just screamed in its crib. Apart from living, that seemed to be its main function. Needing, and screaming.
She sat across the room, rolling in her fingertips the dry paper and tobacco that for some time had been denied to her. The cold, grey space between mother and child was soon warmed by the comfort of smoke.
As she kept reminding herself, it was just the two of them, now. Just the two of them in the entire universe. There was never really a father. Never had been. They only had each other. Telling herself that, daily, was the mantra that just about kept it all together.
None of the others had made it. Stillborn, or worse. This just so happened to be the one that lived. Just the right distance from the sun. The Goldilocks Zone. The right balance of chemicals to function.
Other mothers suffered something like this, afterwards: she knew that. All that time leading up to birth, worrying. Knowing the mistakes and complications for which she had suffered and wept, before. The lifeblood shared between them, the closest intimacy in the world, creating nothing more than an obligation. Creator and creation.
It began wailing again. She pinched the cigarette between her fingers, told herself that it was fine, this was normal. She’d never fully please the thing. She couldn’t pander to its every whim. It would just have to cry itself out. She had done everything one could expect of her.
The jigsaw puzzle, once all put together, is just that: a picture. Stationary. In some respects, perfection. Completion. Present. Simply there.
The urge to break it apart, to try again – or kick over the entire table – that never really left her mind.
Wasn’t this what she wanted? She’d decided to keep the thing, after all. That was her choice. It was her mercy. It was a miracle that the tiny creature got as far as it did. Sometimes, it raised its tiny black eyes to her as if it truly worshipped her. At times like that, their connection meant something. Besides, there was very little else for her, now.
But this little miracle just needed so much. And it never knew how lucky it was. It lived, it breathed: it had something none of its siblings had ever known. The right balance. Oxygen enough, the right temperate. Fed, clothed, its revolting waste bagged and wiped away. Still it bawled, and wailed, clinging to its sheets; clinging to her breast, mouth puckered and furious, unaware of its own profane ingratitude. A crude parody of her own image.
This just so happened to be the one with integers. This one had stability, functions, the right mechanisms. Thermodynamics. It didn’t collapse on itself, rupture, disintegrate. It had conscience. It lived. And that happenstance was why it still remained: all the while, screaming, needing.
Could it be that she made something she couldn’t quite destroy? Was this the logic puzzle? With all her eye-rolling wisdom – her sighing, hair-pulling, hand-wringing knowledge of the world – how did she make something that she simply did not understand? All-knowing, world-weary, yet mystified. Something made from her own being, that she simply didn’t get.
She crushed the cigarette butt against a plate on the floor. The screaming continued for centuries.
Was it possible, with all her infinite, motherly love, that she just didn’t love the thing?
Congratulations! You broke a heart.
How mighty you are, to crack that little nut:
To find the strength of all those men who once
Prised open yours.
Great job: you did it. Get out the good glasses,
Someone mercy-dash to Sainsbury’s
For whatever discount fizz they may have left.
Stay up ‘til late
Red-eyed, hoarse from choking sobs of joy.
From days when you’d sit lovelorn as a boy
You hoped one day you’d be the handsomest.
Well. You passed that test.
I’m sure your mother could just die from pride. She always
Said that you’d break hearts. Oh happy days!
What you always wanted. A dream comes true.
Three cheers, to you.
It takes all sorts, they say, to make a world:
All strange creatures, wide-eyed beasts and grim,
Thrilling in the wonders of the wild;
Dwelling in the comforts of a home;
Dancing mooncalves, too, and foolish fauns.
Yet we two monsters, separate in our ways,
Have nonetheless discovered in our haunts
The truth of one another, in the eyes.
Oh, I have seen the reckless manticores
Bloodlust under moonlight. I am done
With half-crazed revenants, their waking curse.
I relish now the darkness of our den.
It takes all sorts. In all things monstrous,
We find each other. What unnatural luck.
Let’s wonder, while the moon is curious,
What kind of worlds together we can make.
The task of yours: it is the art of truth.
Tunneling through doubts of ancient stone,
Strange symbols on the walls. You hope to sleuth
The place of us, with pen in hand, alone.
Did God, that fabled troglodyte, dwell here?
Are these his words? Those etchings are as sand,
Language collapsing into dust. But fear
No lamp-lit loneliness: she takes your hand.
Dig deep into the cruelty of the earth,
Give to it your nights, your frowns, your youth.
The diamonds there are glass: for in their worth,
As long as she is there, you’ve found the truth.
Palimpsest 