Silver Branch series

Jellyfish  

 

I dream in shades of purple, 

of shimmering confections 

dished on plates of cuttled sand.  

My ankles reek of flesh-clung seaweed, 

the acrid scent of shell-crushed evenings  

on paisley-patterned beaches. 

 

These days are hopscotched  

from my mother’s towel.  From underneath  

the screaming gulls, to where the shore  

foams bright as marshmallows.   

This place is empty of the living, 

but I am here, dodging, bouncing. 

 

I am dancing on cadaverous balloons. 

Stained-glass windows bloat  

and threaten at my toes.  The sting  

of saltwater makes haloes of my eyes.   

I am brave.  I am danger.  At night,  

I dream of landmines underfoot. 

 

 

 

 

​

 

The Smell of Baking Croissants before Dawn 

 

It is too early –   

even for the cobbled ladies 

who wear black and drag  

their shopping trollies behind them  

like obedient toddlers. 

 

Too early for the peeling shutters 

to fling their emerald smiles 

against the brittle chalk of morning 

and beckon back the sky 

into their kitchens. 

 

Too early for the pop and scrape  

of metal lids on jars.  For silver  

teaspoons ringing like glass bells. 

For bellies treasured full 

with heaps of bleeding rubies. 

 

But it is not too early for those who know  

there is no day without this longing.   

Who suffer this:  to breathe  

these layers of want and buttered air.   

To taste the sky, baked gold. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The man in the Tabac gifts me a pen 

 

It is a tiny plastic carousel, perched  

upon a candy pink and blue-striped column. 

 

He shows me how to make it move and spin  

with flick of finger, tells me it’s for writing love letters,  

 

for when I’m older.  But even now I feel the weight  

of this false plaything, and my body stiffens and resists,  

 

but he insists that I remind him of his daughter.   

The one he never sees. 

 

My mother reaches out to fill the vacuum of my refusal. 

I don’t think anyone has called me beautiful before. 

 

 

 

 

​​​

​​​

Supermarché, 1989 

 

It is the smell which draws me in. 

Somewhere between cantaloupe  

and ripened brie.  A rinded coupling  

of novelty, stacked high  

in foreign places. 

 

Bright temptations beckon me. 

Perfect globes of palest green.   

Bosomed, veined with darker shades.   

I marvel at their fullness. 

Wonder at their sameness.   

 

I lift one, gentle as a baby’s head 

and weigh the golden echo 

of its hidden flesh.  I raise it  

to my face and draw my lips  

across its flaxen lace. 

 

The air hums dry with electric chat 

and the ping of the cash register. 

Eternal Flame is playing on the radio. 

My parents wave at me to hurry up, 

tell me not to touch.  

 

 

 

 

​​​

 

Artichoke  

 

Flower, disguised as a knife. 

Brave fingers pry and butter 

at your ruddied gills.  Fibrous  

blades salt-out your tender promise. 

     In steam-dripped halls  

we drag our teeth  

across your open palms. 

Your bleeding heart is our reward. 

 

 

 

​​

​​

​​

Petit Chat 

 

At first, we didn’t think she was a kitten. 

All matted ears, crowned  

with crusted balm of milk. 

 

A tiny, fluffy, glam-rock alien. 

Two startled grapes for eyes 

and a cry as narrow as a pin. 

 

Orphan, the farmer told us. 

Didn’t think she’d last the week, 

between the foxes and the hunger.   

 

But he hadn’t counted on the mothers 

waiting in the dairy shed.   

The oxytocic warmth of sun 

 

dreaming from their silken backs.   

The liquid gold, weeping  

from the hollows of their breasts.   

The way a mother’s grief makes way for love. 

 

 

​​​

​​​

​​​

​​​

Pain au chocolat 

 

She’s been gone an hour already 

and he doesn’t know what to do  

about the children spooning Bonne Maman 

directly from the jar into their mouths, 

their faces beaked with anxiety, 

wrapped in self-sufficiency.   

A feathered morning, primed  

for the angel-sound of falling soles. 

 

When she returns, her arms grown 

heavy with the pain au chocolat,  

it will be because the queue was long.   

The ovens were too slow to heat,  

then ran too hot, 

and it was time to start again.