Katherine Gallagher - 2
Dividing-LineHe sits and looks into the space
of the table, lights a chain of cigarettes over his head. His heart is burning down to his shoes. It should never have happened, this battle. But she's gone. . . He can't believe it, he can still hear her on their net of wild stings gathering her things, leaving wrapping up the life of her own she was always telling him about. Unknown SoldierWe have covered him with real flowers
and taken him from country to country. It's always the same journey -- people standing in the streets silently saluting as we carry him by. And our hands tremble under his weight, our eyes are shocked by the riddle of tongues presenting the same paradox in every country -- the whole human voice as background shrilled to fever about keeping the guns at bay. MomentumsI have known you for a year
and we've chosen yellow flowers to sit beside. Now our picnic's over and you've taken my picture. We may as well go back, through more pictures - see children on a hill move into the skyline past village-houses suddenly painted by sun. This is our walk - the partnered graining. If we argue, you say Don't, we're wasting breath. Our words must float flaring, extravagant as flowers. LostOur child lost in Kew Gardens -
acres, acres and us peeling back the unimaginable, desperate for another chance. . . Tourists passed smiling - blossoms, trees blurred into policemen's radios, children's cries cutting - a three-year-old's blind signals. He had gone, vanished while we raced the afternoon's frenetic maze, dread and nausea jagging our ribs. An hour's nightmares magnified - waiting in one place as directed, with reassurances gathering like balloons, plummeting to a despair. Suddenly my mother, stern heart moored between separations, deaths and years of loving, stood there marking time, waiting too. FirstbornFor years I dreamt you
my lost child, a face unpromised. I gathered you in, gambling, making maps over your head. You were the beginning of a wish and when I finally held you, like some mother-cat I looked you over - my dozy lone-traveller set down at last. So much for maps, I tried to etch you in, little stranger wrapped like a Japanese doll. You opened your fish-eyes and stared, slowly your bunched fists bracing on air. Leavingwe watched seasons
seep into our skins saw the seasons fail fought them now we find ourselves packing once more choosing a direction the sky weightless tracks ribboning before our eyes the cart piled ready we scratch final messages wedge ourselves on board elbows jarring our sides suddenly the driver jerking the reins in hard as the load tilts and crockery starts to break on itself Comments?
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The White Boat
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