THE NEW PLACE

for TH

The new place is still an unpacked pile
of boxes, crockery lying in wait
wrapped in newspaper, a brown file
of tenancy agreements and contracts
that are signed and dated. The white
walls are uncluttered by jam-sticky hands
or crayons that count the kids' heights
in months, January — March — December.
The year opens like a front door
to a garden of blossoming flowers,
the roses uncurling like cats,
blown dandelion clocks exploding the air,
filling the bedrooms with fairies.
Nell, bouncing on bedsprings, captures a wish.

SHRIVEL

for SJ

When he reached sixty his penis
shrunk up his prostate
like a snail hiding its face
in its shell. His hermit crab
sometimes showed its claws
unexpectedly in the bath or on a bus,
but if he fancied a bash
it turned tortoise, a slug
in his fist that slipped his hand.

NAPPIES

for EM

Nobody told us the baby
would make so much shit. Nobody

warned us the piles of nappies
that propped up the rocker was

unconquerable. We were buried
in walls of elasticated waist bands

that pinched our hips. Gave us rash.
We were Sudocrem freaks. Washed

our hands every six minutes.
Worried about dysentery and anthrax

and rats. But we love the warm
parcel each morning and calm

the accompanying sobs. The child
is colic or sick or overfed

or underfed, or just walking in nappies
as if she were filling her britches.

To hell with the nappies.
May their stinking white edifice rise

out of the dustbin like a Triffid
attempting to strangle the house would.

I WAS A GARETH GATES FAN

for JD

I was just like my grandmother,
phoning for both in case either

would lose. She'd told me she'd rung up
eight times, and each time a flip-flop

decision as who was her Pop 
Idol. I plumped for the young pup

who stammered and looked like cute sex,
and voted the once more. My ex

was indifferent and said both my
Nanna and I were insane. Say

what you will about phone votes,
my nan is officially nuts.

She'd gone for Will Young and for Steve
Brookstein on X-Factor. Believe

me, she's crazy but loves choirs
of stutterers as much as queers.

CONSTIPATION

for SJ

I felt it first
in my gut,
which contorted
around turds
like a brow
solving a problem.
It was not
the one thing,
but several
backed up
and hardening
into a fist
of stones.

My bowel
inflated
with flatulent
shouts and groans
that could not
commute
themselves
beyond the brick
of shit
that had settled
in my colon.

I puffed
as I pushed
my entire pelvic
floor at
the enormous
turnip that lodged
in my large
intestine.
I had taken
in too much 
and not enough
fibre, so
I swelled
like a pregnant sow, 
burdened
with a bellyful
of cack.

I squeezed
at my middle
in an effort
to pop
the cork
of my fizzy
brown dilemma.
No such luck!
I was stuck
with the bab
like a debt
inherited
from a dead
spouse or parent.

Eventually,
it collapsed
like a neutron star
after reaching
critical mess
in the produce aisle
of Tescos.
The staff
were polite
as they mopped
at the seeping
tide when it ran
on to pop
and crisps
and I cried
great big sobs
of relief
and I farted
and was released.

THAT'S TORN IT

for MH-S

If the Minister of State for Health dropped his keys
in the street outside his home and bent from his back
and not from his knees as we're told, then his trousers
would stretch over his arse and rip. And the cameras
would catch it in a battering of flashbulbs and the hacks
would laugh at the red lipstick print emblazoned
across both cheeks as if they'd been kissed. His wife
would stand in the window aghast, while tatters
of fabric flapped round his bum before tumbling down
to his ankles. A leveller this. Stood in the street,
feeling the breeze on your balls and your thin thighs
twitching like a giraffe standing after just being born.

JAMES DRAPER EUROPEAN CINEMA CLUB

for JD

None of the boys in these movies 
are under eighteen in compliance
with European law, and none
of the boys in these movies are over
nineteen, and no-one speaks English,
only Icelandic or Dutch. Everyone
takes all of their clothes off almost
all of the time in these movies, and
nobody gets shy round the thermals
and geysers on those volcanic shores.
Sometimes two of the boys go off
on their own for a talk-scene indoors,
say a beach house or sauna, either
they are clothed, or unclothed, or
unclothing each other as they talk.
None of the boys in these movies
has a bad word to say about the boys
in these movies, and none of the boys
says anything dumb or clever in these
movies, and everyone is always cut
and clean shaven, and no-one is fat,
and no-one is ugly. All of the boys
in these movies do it for pleasure,
nobody gets paid more than the other,
and none have a beautiful wife
back home, or a child to provide for.
Everyone is single and happy and alone.