CHAIR

I still see you sitting on the old chair now you’ve gone;
your back supported by pillows that remain in place,
your brown hair was falling over your shoulders as
the sun sets behind you. Curved arms embraced
you in a cane cuddle sweeping down the legs.

I recall those long gone days before you painted it
to match your pale pink room when you were a girl.
The cane had shone with planes of polish spread
by generations of women; a wicker diamond woven
into its back was patterned blue, red and green.

Looking now, I want to restore it, return it
to how I remember when you were a baby,
so it will glow again as the evening sun glances
with a kiss through the window replaying the day
you sat there reading, the child inside you – growing.

I knock softly, listening for you voice,
you…

One Nation

1

The place hasn’t changed. Things are in their place.
Things remain exactly what they were: just things.
Home comforts are what we expect of home.

Sunlight hovers on walls, remaining sunlight
even when spread on pavements. Our keel is more or less even.
Our clothes are comfortable simply because they’re our clothes.

Back to front, front to back we go, until we’re back
at the front. We try to preserve a united front.
Here is where we are: our place is always here.

2

The softness of the place, the pressing into grass.
The warmth when it arrives as a kind of grace.

The soft bricks, the earth that crumbles. Rain
that gentles and does not precipitate ruin.

Temperate climes. Our fingers on the pulse
of dinner and bed, the night fumbling for pills.

3

The poor will get poorer, the rich richer. The wind
of fortune…

The Bus Riders’ Creed

We believe that passengers, like motorists, are people, who need to move from one place to another;
that if their destination is too far for them to walk, they should have provided safe, efficient means to get them there;
that these means are more efficient shared, and that sharing, as every toddler knows, is good;
that therefore it is no imposition to take yourself to a public stop, and wait with other passengers;
nor is it an infringement of your rights to have to wait for transport while it pauses at other people’s stops;
that everyone who can pay pays the same price for the same distance, and those who can’t pay should be helped to pay;
that those who need help to get on should be helped to get on, and if other passengers can help them, then they should;
that if someone needs your…

Mare Nostrum

Shoe laces tie the dead tighter than life.
We raft on their skin, how can flesh float
when boats shatter, wood, ribs and bone.
Hamid, swollen brother, hollow gourd,
the salted body of you drifts, whitens tears.
My hands are cups of waves and piss
and all the sky hangs grey as glass.
I never knew the baby’s name. Gaza, Syria.
Her eyes are closed, turtle, fish.