Poetry From The Back Of My Hand

We sit and stare ahead,
eyes locked on her plaits as she dives through the traffic.
She listens to the radio, bobs her head, so we speak through it.

We withstand the noise only because it is not white,
not obviously there the way smoke is, but grey.

The sound is milk thick and cola soft,
so we dip our toes in gently, so gently that we don’t realise
what we do.

She puts the music up, takes her sunglasses off, and turns to us,
to the back and to the speakers. She steers us into a tree.

Later we laugh at our startled eyes, hands that wave wildly, but only later,
now we scream as we crash into an apple tree,
laden with fruit which taps the car’s hood as it falls as if rain.

Painted faces,
black and white, red smeared on their faces,
depicting large lips,
faces contoured, hands waving frantically,
they jump as if onto a trampoline.

Underneath, the charred ground collects their bodies,
like a bottle collecting grapes to make wine.

We look down to see
a pink carnage blossoming
like poppies out of milk.

She feels his pulse against her cheek,
feels it throb, the way she imagines clocks would
were you to inhabit them.
They are slow, lethargic, cumbersome tick tocks.

His skin, no longer sandy and rigid but milky, and
supple as if made up from rubber bands sewn together.
His veins, hills like blue elephants
break the surface of his skin,
remind her that the time has come for byes.

She measures his pulse against her watch,
can not decipher anything other than that his beat is much slower,
painful.

She would wait for him to wake up,
wait for him to sleep again
but knows that this time it won’t help
and it will only be her that sleeps again tonight.

Blue lips held firmly open,
red and white tablets sit on the tongue.
The throat opens up, swallows
and within the pink damp walls the race to freedom begins.

The blood pushes itself around thinned walls
that feel like wet tissues,
moist from the blood that beats against the flesh walls,
moaning to be let out.

She lies down in her cell,
waits for the pumping to stop,
the walls to open, but they don’t.

The walls thicken like glue, and
push her left and right,
squeeze her throat
between razor sharp nails.

Her heart stops for just one second,
stops then starts again
and in that moment the blood does not pump,
the walls don’t beat to the heart’s rhythmn,
but humm like birds.

The night she died in her arms
the sky bled stars -
the clouds had an aneurism
that echoed her heart’s last beat.

The night she died,
the air stopped moving
and became so solid
it chocked passersby.

The night she died
water in the taps became wiry
plant stems that choked those who drank it.

She came to her later,
as a spirit,
not in her dreams but in the day
as clear and brightly dressed as the sun.

The spirit cried blood in her arms,
tried to climb into her body,
stay intwined with life,
but couldn’t stop the light.

The light struck her,
knocked her off balance,
collected her like genie in a jug.
She never returned.

That the sun doesn’t always shine
even though it’s always in the sky.
That I love you doesn’t mean what it used to.
That love is a card you buy for £2.50 and
a box of chocolates, if you’re lucky or sometimes “special.”

That reality is more important than anything.
That staying sane isn’t easy.
That families either hold you up or push you down.
That silence is not golden but steel.
That laughter comes sometimes when crying should.
That you always loose what you most take for granted.
That blue and black are the same if in the dark.
That white isn’t white and black not black.
That women abuse too.
That silence isn’t golden but steel,
not necessary merely binding.
That Christmas starts in September
and Easter in January.

Not Helen of Troy
Not Emma, not Juliet, not Shakespeare’s Beatrice,
but Beatriz Espinosa de Guevara
Beautiful, noble, gentle, rich, coverted Beatrice.

Skin as white as barium lilies,
taupe hair
breasts as supple as raw calf meat.
Silky hair waterfalls from her shoulders.

A thousand smiling suits,
a thousand mansions,
but Beatrice would not accept
any.

Suddenly- like the rain-
Don Martin de Scopoli-
cue- enter from the right
to go to stage centre.

Love and passion for Beatrice
grows as quickly and thickly as weeds aflame,
but suitors barricaded the entrance
to his love.

Bodies sowed along the streets like corn-
(not Penelope- but Beatrice)-
tombs sprung up like weeds
chasing Don Martin’s shadow.

Beatrice falls–fast, and furiously
as though she had jumped
from Sleeping Beauty’s tower,
for his wit, beauty, words.

In this once upon a time however
she was sad and couldn’t find
her happily ever after
while ghosts filled the streets like Autumn leaves.

A prayer to Santa Luca-
a brazier, charcoal and a flame.
A wish, a desire, a threat.
She puts flame to face.
Veils her face with the brazier,
corroding, melting, disfiguring her skin
that bleeds,
and bleeds.

The smell of burning flesh- a scream-
sound of feet on steps-
herbs and vinegar lathered onto flaying skin.
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO HER SUITOR?

Eyes now pot holes under burnt eyebrows,
now no longer brows but bloodied scars,
skin now melted like plastic
covered by a black veil,

I did it so that he stops lloving me-
stops killing-
to save lives-
so that he no longer loves me.

Ah Beatriz, I love you.
Not for your beauty, just for your moral behaviours.
You are a good and generous lady.
Your noble and your soul is pure.

A lifting of a black and red spotted veil-
a kiss-
blood and burnt flesh on lips-
a ring and a happily ever after.