THE FIRST NIGHTS HERE

It all came back again
tonight with the first spring thunder
in a rush of rain.

with just a simple touch
is in my heart again

It all came back again
tonight with the first monsoon thunder
in a rush of rain and I wet again.

when our eyes met
I realised we are still connected

It all came back again
tonight with the first spring thunder
in a rush of rain.

the first nights here proved otherwise
sleep kept light by noises

LATER LIFE

for MH

Her fingers are fussing the big, green

button that holds her cardigan.

Taking pills to remember her stockings.

Getting dressed each morning

to sit in her chair. Her velvet mauve

slippers. A white crocheted shawl.

The television is silent as a wall.

Two raised stripes show she has worn

two bras, but no other underwear.

The clock fingers race and whirr,

eager to have the day done. The world

spins an axis about that chair.

The old–style bulbs fizz and stir.
It seems one is about to burst,
threatening with lengthening flickers.

Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Dark.

THE OLD PLACE

for RM

I walked by the old place today
but couldn't see much from the front
past the overgrown privet that swamped
the bowed gate. Round the back
that Flymo we left in the outhouse
was buggered, the blade crusted with rust,
and those Qualcast hedge-trimmers
were entombed in cobwebs. That tree,
that threatened to pull down the wall
of the office that squared the back yard,
had withstood the knocks of the council
environmental department and flourished.
The lawn was a wild meadow of dandelions,
thrusting out cracked pots. The greenhouse
had collapsed to a pile of bent metal
and shattered glass. That wooden chair
was still sat where it sat before
and the fleece that got caught out
in the rain and was ruined still hung
across its shoulders. Not everything remained.
The neighbours had changed more than once,
judging by the addressees of debt notices
dumped in recycling bins. Placing back
pizza leaflets a child spooked me
staring through the letterbox. Two brown eyes
that watched me scarper down the jinnel.
A fat, haired hand in an upstairs window
let a curtain fall back shut.

NUDES

When I surprised
a woman showering,
sorry towelling
her hair, I did not see
the full beaver
only its tail, say,
peeping through
her modest fingers,
the coyness transfigured
to a nervous smile.


Here, before the mirror,
the shame returns
in rolls of hairy flesh
that falls and folds
about the hips and ankles
like a towel, dropped
in a communal shower
at a swimming pool, say,


his body, younger,
leaner, firmer,
turned to catch it,
caught instead 
my eyes, snagged
on the tip of his prick,
erect. Flushing red,
I swear, he lingered,
showering in my gaze,
before he lifted the towel
and hid it away.

THE GRANDMOTHER SHUFFLE

for MH

My Grandmother shuffles the cards in her palms,
but boxes them. These days her palms

are smaller, she remembers. She remembers the Luftwaffe
bombing Coventry better than dinners. She boxes them.

She does not notice. The shadows are creeping
over the kitchen like Luftwaffe. Those gentlemen

she courted in Birmingham remember the prick
of her hat pin. They got too fresh. It was only a first date

that slipped from her grip like a butterknife.
The Luftwaffe are thunder, sending her running

under the stairs. Now she is shuffling.
Her small palms boxing the names of her nephews

and grandsons.  She remembers them like a husband.
They get fresh each time they meet. The Cathedral is burning.

CLINKERS

for DM

Old poem riddled
dead ash in a cooling hearth —
unloosed strange cinders.