Rooting

I'm rooting through my old stuff to try and select the best for a volume later in the year. Here's a poem about Jane from 'Horridge'.



Ideal Homes

You keep the Subaru,
compact as yourself,
white as the knuckles on the wheel,
snouting south over the Corinth Canal,
through the bleached bones of Greece.
I look into your eyes,
beyond the reflection of that farm truck
with brake problems.

Three days ago in the Cyclades
a huge sun sank on cue
and a breeze carrying all the hot bubble
of the Peloponnese fanned my cheek,
and I thought yes this is the place,
but now I look into your face
I see a darker climate,
but I am disposed to live there,
with all its squalls.



From roughly the same time, in response to Rachel's request, a poem by Jane. Jane was published in quite a few places, then got scunnered. Don't know why.


Four Seasons in the Blue Room

Let me breathe your name
like a sigh,
on nights when the moon
hangs like a tiny ear,
and the wind whoops
above our bed,
and the only way to go is up
out of the window:
dance in air.

Here I have fingered treasures:
smelt your skin like good food,
kissed the rose coloured lips,
moved under your careful hands.

Everything began on a night like this.
Today was warm on my cheek
like a familiar breath saying
open, come,
and suddenly that night,
when I knew I'd touched something amazing,
seemed no further away
than that breath
and those hushed words.