Pink Satin
The studio mirrors
multiply you
a thousand times.
Over and over
your face torn, repeated.
Jealousy there greeting me
like a sister
like a sister downtrodden
and told to hush
like a relative battling
with chronic shoulder
pain.
Lifting weights
when will you relax.
My feet slip and slide and
catch
the wooden scrubbed floor
with a squeak.
In the writing I
backtrack.
With creation I am life
and I have the power to
backtrack.
I resurrect the bones
dress them in pink satin,
spilt milkshake reflecting
the light from the
windows.
Fresh grey afternoon
parks spread out in
terrible neat patterns
the glass in need of a
clean.
I need need
need
ripples, my hands shake,
there you are at the door,
leaving,
entering the corridor.
The stains of your
presence
transient
you are not really gone.
Fluorescent strip lights
and the dust-creased
floorboards
lined, scummed,
the wood knocks heavy
under bare feet
and I am sliced.
Snakes of satin crawl in
the light
petal-skin and naked
the beat of my feet
slapping skin,
tapping.
Like Jewels in the Light
Waves splash up like scattered stars,
fleeting constellations resounding in the echo of the ship's horn. We
peer down and you raise a skinny wrist, a gold chain dripping down,
glinting in the evening sun.
'This is my favourite time of day' you
say, and if I was feeling less generous I would remind you that you
say it every time we are together at this hour, which has been many,
but now at this moment, as the waves churn the deck, make us float
and soar like birds in an oil-heavy sky, I let you muse in your own
private glow, I let you think that you have just said something
poetic, and I know what thoughts do backflips in your head as you
look out into the peach-gold horizon, that enigmatic slice, that
unattainable sliver.
You lean down to watch the white foam
curdling at the base of the ship, and as you do so an earring falls,
a big gold art deco statement that I always secretly thought looked a
little overdone, a little too much for your sweet monkey face, but
would always smile when you put them on. You let out a scream and I
notice people's heads turn.
'My earring!' - as if there was any
doubt what had just tumbled into the dark, gloating waves.
You keep peering down, and to each
side, and further on to the distance, the innocence of a child
searching for the Easter bunny, the treasure chest.
The evening service imminent, some of
the crew begin lighting the hanging lanterns and the band set up by
the bar. A pleasant evening by anyone's standards, another one to
tally off, to throw in the spent pile of other pleasant evenings soon
to be forgot, recalled only with the smell of salt, the crackle of
paraffin, and your presence beside me, undulating with chronic
unease.
Tree Surgeon
Balmy crickets and
salt-sweet drops of sweat on my forehead, the hollow sound of my
boots on the sun-parched earth, horseflies and swallows and crunching
snail-shells, and winding down my back, the snake-skin crackle of
guilt, and how do I feel such a thing in this landscape, your face, I
wish it wasn't but there it is at the end of the track, at the mouth
of the forest, walking towards me with an axe in your hand, and maybe
you are topless, but most likely sweating like me, too hot in a
hoodie, and you swing the axe as you stare at me head-on, like you
know for certain that it's me and you're not surprised in the
slightest and your skin is dark tan and I know you've been cutting
down trees or at least collecting branches from the dead ones.
Shadows – I imagine
dipping into them but I fear the cool dark returning me to the
primordial cot, it's safer to stay in the light though it scolds –
everything is gold – and here we are on the run. If I stopped the
noise would be too much, and no, that's it, I must keep walking, the
path goes on with nothing behind, long stems of grass, bark mingling
with earth, trees, beautiful apparitions, souls turned inside out,
guts and veins expressed in fragrant boughs.
You said you always loved
trees so I asked you why you cut them down – 'I mend them' you
said, 'like a surgeon.'
Looking around, I wonder
what ailments you'd find in the cypress, the fern, the cumbersome
oak. Would you respond instinctively to their quiet cries, their
whispering pain?
I see you with your palm
spread out as if feeling a heartbeat, as if I needed any more proof
that they were alive.
All photos by Lara Usherwood
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