You were my shadow in the darkness
of the kneading-trough.
I taught you to speak, to love;
named you for the child I lost,
...
October's dying, and I'm looking for a friend,
A kindred spirit I've mislaid
Somewhere between a grief and recollection.
This bus - an any bus - pulls up,
...
Trudging the marsh,
Looking for dragonflies, watersnails, tadpoles;
My breath sucked at the April mist-water,
My boots grew gills;
...
In case I am marooned on a desert island,
I'll equip myself with twine, a Swiss army knife,
And Ray Mears.
I'll bring sandals, blankets,
...
The rink, like a disc of frosting
In a baker's display,
Was encrusted with children -
Three hundred hats on three hundred heads,
...
Three storeys of fading memories
Stand on a hill.
Uninhabitable.
I tread the ribcage of its staircase,
...
Born into an Eastern religious cult and raised by feral dogs on a small Greek island whose waters were patrolled by Albanian gun-boats. Introduced to the Sapphic joys by a lesbian naturist with a motorbike. Taught self to read and did a degree in Old English Literature. Jobs have included cowboy, chambermaid, dam-builder, shawl-maker, farmhand, vet, zookeeper, proofreader, table dancer, book seller, ghostwriter. Now living in the wilds of Scotland, in a stone gatehouse full of abandoned animals.)
Branwen And The Starling
You were my shadow in the darkness
of the kneading-trough.
I taught you to speak, to love;
named you for the child I lost,
Gwern, my Gwern.
>> I might lose myself in the hills of Harlech,
>> leave you trapped;
>> I might haunt these woods along the shore
>> and not return.
My finger traced the scales of your foot,
threw me back ten years
to a bark gate and a sheep track
where I played barefoot on rock.
>> You sent me flapping at the wind's whim,
>> a voice above the waves - to taunt
>> forbidden ships - to save you;
>> but the trees tonight are full of spring.
The beat of your wings brought breezes of home;
your eye's liquid, the lake my childhood lost;
under the milky way of your plumage,
my hopes go whirling through the dark.