When the Prophetess Passed
 
His arid throat,
balanced on their shifted family fulcrum
cried out for lubrication;
she passed, another basket
under her uxter
and blessed
and blessed his larynx.

Down Under
 
In Cobargo I told Margo that
cigarette packets come in 40s.
Up his tee shirt sleeve it was
clinging to his sweaty tanned
arm; another blind puffer.
At midday it got too hot for
even the hard men and he
removed his sweat-marked
red top. When he left to get
two shots from the busty
barmaid I took the bulky pack
with me to the toilet and after
removing the warning label I
placed it on my credit card and
flew back to my country lane.
Three days I lay in hiding below
the luminous gun club sign;
stooping in the undergrowth by
the unappreciated pond. They
fired two shots simultaneously
and the flapping introduced itself
from the near naked trees at
the top of the field splitting the
acreage in two. The cold north-
east wind hit her first, her head
low set and pulling her as she
went, the gunmen tut-tutting,
their best friends barking. I
reached up and stuck it to her
underbelly. At the end of the
day they were both dead right.

Apple Trees
 
‘the written word is the most powerful tool we have
to protect ourselves, both from the tyrants of the
day and from our own traditions’
Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize winner 2003
 
 
She asked me ‘who are you’ quick as
a beggar would catch you after a few
pints and without a stir her radar eyes
were fixed and waiting. Jesus I was lost.
 
The man I wasn’t told me that she was
an old lady with a plastic file that held
nothing and nonsense and a little pen,
until I peeped outside of history and
 
saw her perched on a Persian rug her
toolbox full of useful words and rhymes,
of schemes and pleasures, of the little
girl that carelessly laughed out loud as
 
those eyes again had lit a smirk that
said ‘shur I already know who you are’.
She got her retaliation in first and turned
and sailed away to visit the orchard that
 
was her and doubled on the puck that
was hers, ‘did you like my poem last week
and how much do you think I should pay
a fella to cut my grass’. Lost again.
 
‘The one about the apple tree, should I
get the lawnmower fixed or get a fella
to cut the grass altogether’. The answer
never reached her giggling ears.

Point It Out To Me
 
I saw it first in their wedding photograph.
A hand-in-the-till expression that
Fingered them every time.
Stopped them from crossing over.
 
Earlier they had written their first paragraph.
Taken each other for better or worse;
In words that is, in words. Six decades
Of virginity between them a curse. And
 
Later, years later their teeth pulled and
Their old smiles automated they would
Dodge the bullets of unfinished-business
That loitered in their sleeping range.
 
Minefields were everywhere. Before
I was tall I would often trace their steps
On the intertwining sets of stepping stones
In shoes as small as my awareness.