1
Swimming pool.
Gosh.
Story I cannot tell.
2
And dozing I became confused
about the time I had left to set things aright,
to take the correct turn down
from the mountains. Either into the plains.
taking the easy paths left by those
who do not care about leaving debris,
or else to wander till I find mauve hills
with innumerable streams
running off rocks and heather
and down to the green soft valley.
The time I had left for the choice became confused,
was it only one day or is it rather the rest of my life?
3
My dad‘s foot began to bleed, so I think he stubbed it on a sea rock and the salt water meant it bled a lot.
He was reluctant to be quick and take urgent action.
He said something to the effect that made us think he thought that he would die
For TI’s wedding near the Meadows I was reassured
that although I’d taken it seemingly as a joke,
I was welcome to crash in his bed some time.
I had a Santa costume to put on and for S
I performed well although he noticed
that I did not know how to spell Sidip (his mother‘s surname).
It is with a T not a P. He told me. And the young boy was correct.
4
The engravings in the church depicted the Saint
dealing in her own way with the fire.
In one tableau she was hidden by the crowd
by the side of the harbour wall and in another
her feet were on fire. You had left in the moment before
the door closed and the tour began.
In the harbour the wind blew the water
that covered the walkway at the top of the wall.
Imagine someone, a child maybe, inspecting a coke spill
On a macdonalds table. They take the straw between their teeth
And blow ripples here and there in the cola
Watching it bunch towards the table’s edge.
The wind acted in much the same way. Meanwhile
The sea itself threw shovels of spray over the wall
And the harbour, green, played by itself with the wind,
With skids of air landing on the surface and the water’s skin
Tightening then bunching up.
5
I meet TI and his brother outside the apartment whilst trying to cover my tracks. I had to hide some drinking glasses, five, almost a complete set. I’d had the idea to stash them in a phone box (or was it a fire alarm or an under pillow speaker?) but got cold feet. I bumped into a post man outside the building who questioned me about my being there and watched me as i walked away. Friendly but watchful. He would remember my face when the police asked him,. Id tried to wipe my fingerprints off the thing in the phone box. What was the crime? Being in that girl’s bedroom at all?
Beckham fled when he saw his wife, Victoria, go too far. She’d smashed the tumbler that was in someone else’s hands. Maybe mine. Maybe someone attacking her. It left just the base in their palm, with an upper edge of shards where the wall of the tumbler had been. Then she pushed my (?) hand to my face so the tumbler connected with my cheek and left a bloody ring. This was too much for David and he decided it was time to pull the plug.
He left with his dad, Michael Caine, and in their Mercedes saloon they drove cross country so as not to be found. They found themselves by the sea where strange pink lobster crabs crawled in pools. There Beckham headed in the water, enchanted by a water god, his wife’s voice. And he decided to return to her.
6
Once we have gathered the ingredients for dinner,
and have taken bus past the many ships this time of the year
and i have given the man the directions to the theatre over the ocean
we discuss Ireland and Dan tells us
about the relative of his who left after the famine
but due to the malnutrition had been left without limbs
and everyday would run to work on her stumps
to begin a rebellion against this state
and by the glass of the office door, growing out the grass,
every day the blue scent of a single flower
would wind its way to her and she would know
that she was safe and well and could not be touched.
And the whole canteen was listening now. When will it be,
that Ireland will fulfill its destiny, and become
the socialist country it is at its heart?
7
The child with the broken arm hanging like a string,
commonplace, the way of things.
8
In the cottage, the old man upstairs, it wouldn’t be long now.
Remind yourself, to take some care of him.
9
Dad had to chop up the body of a baby he’d been storing in the freezer at home
and dispose of it in many various locations. He told me this on my short visit home.
He gave me many things, uncluding a huge laptop. I confided in S, who came accross Jaqui
and Dad in their room, and it all came out — they decided it had been a bad idea.
I tried to go to the gym. Ran out of time. Mum went to a show. Was left with all this luggage. To try and pack then move.
Kate wanted to cut my hair, the new area in the room with all the Scwarzkopf products.
Something about my hair looking a mess, or nice. The hair. The dogwhistle philosemitism.
10
We could easily swap the photo he absconded
For one of our many copies of the press shot,
Buff, in a sparkling string vest, hands on opposite biceps,
elbows hanging from his chest like breasts.
11
And then the documentary about pooing in drawers.
One old woman saying that was how it was done,
climbing up a ladder, opening a drawer and pooing in it.
Then another couple saying they had a water closet
and then one woman who took the television presenter down
to where she’d throw her pink translucent bin bags of poo
into a pit, that was really somebody elses home.
The presenter (me) listened and tried to reason with her.
Then tried to put on his roller skates, learning serbian
or turkish for my next tutoring expedition.
12
The car with the open boot was just within earshot
but this still isn’t my country, i don’t just shout down the street.
It turned onto the three lane dual carriageway
and I saw the black handbag sitting there unfastened.