Feathers

*


I followed a trail of tiny white
feathers, collecting them as I went,
as if by some miracle of well-meaning
I could put the bird back together.
Scuffing fallen hawthorn leaves and squishing
berries to find each fluffed sprig of bird
sadly fallen, I worked quickly warming feathers
with clammy desire. Blood of leaves
would fix the bird, if only. Tempting myself
with fag ends of nature.
Later, that night, a dream of something else,
a tear-shaped diamond with feathers
all around, bird’s foot
clasp, silvered and glinting.
I wear the bird brooch
stabbed to my heart.

spellings

*


My son holds his pencil with firm correction,
his posture a question, picks a word
from the spellings list: bite.
The dog had a bite of frost.
But writes bit not bite.
It's kinder that way.

*

Because it is windy today I watch the leaves.
There's a red one flirting in the lawn,
so I rush outside to catch it, carefully,
curled in my palm like a phoenix tail feather.
I'll keep it later for a photograph
but days on it's blackened.

If love is patience then a leaf is a kiss.
If a red one is your heart may it crackle
and fly and die and live again.

*

I can't spell without writing it down.
I can't spell it out without using my mouth,
big gaping kisses with holes
where your mouth should be.

*

Phantom feathers, leaves are these.
Spell aphrodisiac without a sip of tea.
Hold your skirt as you walk across the rainbows.
Light a candle, light three, don't burn.

A spell of rainbows has made you.
I hold a tiny feather between leaves of a book.
The tea is good, if warmed with candles.
Allow yourself a phantom splendour.

*

A tiny dictionary of hearts:
it is papery and as light as a leaf
due next Spring.

I learn how to spell my name again
in water, in light, rain, frost.

my love the traveller

my love the traveller brings to me
a casket of oriental dusk
a map of a yet born island
skeletal leaves from a nowhere forest
a french cloud tied with ribbons
a postcard of somewhere else
a handkerchief stitched by a prince
the heart of a nightingale
who sang herself to death
a promise of winter snow
mended red shoes
ever unravelling string
a foxtrot from the amazon
the sigh of a river
the lisp of a mountain
so many city sunsets

seventh son

notes from a longer sequence-in-progress 'my seventh son'

I shape you
like a sonic sigh of dust
or the windsept grin
of an ageing lover
you are not so far from here.

I feel you as warm dough
beneath my cold feet.
And in the morning your breath
is something I consider
against the windows
against the oily colours of each magpie
across out there.

There is something to behold
my seventh son, unravelling,
the kinked and lustred feel of you
coiling to the floor.
Some will say: she's wreckless,
burdening herself with so much to wind up.

If I had to draw a map of you
you'd be something like a drowned island
always swimming deeper away from me.

And so it is, my dear,
our lives so burdened with language
I cannot fill you with less,
but for a moment
consider the apple on my plate
and how best to slice, divide
and lucky me for splitting the seed.