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Sisters (part i)
i.
This sister is the bones of the outfit,
she is the stuff that keeps the body up,
she is dem bones, dem bones,
she is calcified connective tissue,
she is femur, tibia, ulna, ribs.
ii.
This sister is the perfect scrunch
of English Rose,
all delicate petal curl, subtle pinks,
she opens her smile up to the sun.
This sister is a fuzzy stamen
with a dust of pollen,
she is the heady waft of perfume
begging you to bring your face down to her,
to bring your face right down.
iii.
She is the one with the hair just-so,
the handkerchief skirt hems, the well-cut clothes,
and on birthdays she gets the family all together –
we line up for photos that never looked posed,
and how she laughs at being vegetarian
but each Christmas allowing herself a little meat.
She is the one with the dainty features, the cutesy nose
the one they look for when you enter the room,
and the way they hang on her words makes you nauseous
but you can’t say it, because she was the one
who watched out for you behind the shops and in the playground.
She is the one with the amicable divorce
and the books on cake decorating –
all those fiddly womanly things you have no patience for,
and she is the one who sat up all night in the crematorium
plaiting flowers into your mother’s hair.
iv.
This sister reads Nietzsche,
her hair is twisted into bunches like tiny horns,
she makes abstract art with fur and feathers,
she likes to collect things from gutters and pavements,
and her eyes have that sparkle you were scared of as a kid.
v.
This sister is the bee
and we are the nectar,
she is drawing us in
with her persistent buzzing,
her talk of the hive mind,
her tremble dance.
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Bee Mornings
The bees that sleep inside me
fill my mind with buzz.
We are Nectar they say,
we are Wax and Cone,
we are of Bee but not of Bee.
In the morning I look at my stripes
under the covers, something strange
is taking place inside me,
my tongue has turned to fur,
my head hums like something electric.
Yet by breakfast you would never know:
I fidget the toast around the plate,
it feels quite wrong
to eat honey on bee mornings.
Any minute I might take flight.
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Feather Factory
We kiss by the side of the feather factory,
the stench of singed wings
fills our noses and mouths.
We are nest-bound – tongues entwined,
pockets full of Swan Vestas and Player’s Number Six,
your nylon trousers spark to the rub.
Later the birds will haunt us:
their feathers will float around our heads,
pillow our eyes against the brightness of the day.
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Family Values
Sun Daddy believed that the world was small
When the world knocked at his door
Sun Daddy put his head under the pillow
and shouted go away.
Every few weeks the world knocked
and Sun Daddy shouted,
and so it went on for years.
Sometimes when Sun Daddy was at work
Moon Mother invited the world in,
listened to its stories,
but made sure to shoo it out
before Sun Daddy’s return.
One day Sun Daddy caught sight of the world
as it rolled away down the hill.
Sun Daddy’s Moods
On good days Sun Daddy was the standard lamp,
he sat in the corner puffing away on his pipe.
The Star Children, their soft faces wreathed in smoke,
would creep nearer and nearer,...
