Nettle Song
You know, under the moonshine
the thorns in the garden look inviting, like tiny fingers
grasping for air. My heart opens
to the possibility that tomorrow you’ll
be home in time for dinner. In the meantime,
I gather every leaf left behind, gather the hurts
with my bare hands. Turn them over, find bright
stripey caterpillars lodged there, eating their fill.
If you were here I’d show you the damage and you’d say:;
Little sister, do you hear
how those little workers hum? Their songs make
way for the morning light to fall through the leaves.
Now, I never know one song from another. The one that is left
in my mind or the one you wanted me to remember.
II
When I return home,
Will you love me again?
If you’ve held onto
all my old words, you’ll know
the dangers of promises.
Those that are made
too fast, broken too soon and
of course, the apologies. Lost, like a soft
sound carried away with the wind.
As the taxi leaves the station, I dream of you hunching over the nettles like we used to, trying to find me in the chrysalis. But really, I’ve already tasted air. I see you lying there; rustling a forest of pain between your fingers, crying to the song we used to sing.
Movements
I
I am into the same dream. A gate. A gape in the foliage. Then, I stand at the edge of a soapy pond. Falling, I find my body. A door-knob turns and a burst of birds. They scream my name. Crows, and I know they have found their master.
II
I never expected to be here. The room is small and bare. People in white speak to me as if I understand. It is vertigo, but they don’t have to know. Today is a Saturday and I took the train to town. Underground, and I know where I am headed but I can’t see through it; can we ever see it through?
III
My mother says I stirred inside her like a terrapin. I still love water but she means I marked her. Listen, she tells me when I see her: Love is not one act, but an endless play. You are the actor, director and critic, all at once. Your only audience: the child. I walk away heavier but I will remember.
IV
I look out the window and think to myself how women are chambermaids. Her world a world of sheets, shit and realisations. But does the world around her realise she’s abandoned her cottage for the castle? Then, I feel you for the first time and I cannot let go of the growing fear.
V
I tell myself that when you arrive it will be different, my fear efferent. What will live of me? He will say it is you—- you who are both of us made materially true. No, but what of me, I want to say. He holds my hand, as if he understands.
VI
Hands of his become foreign. There is a word for loving, a dance I have forgotten. He works his wood, fuelling the furnace. You are lodged in me like a lump of burning coal.
VII
One day you will find this book of fears. My dreams, the dark things I think will be your property. Maybe you will smell the tears, lick the pages for the last drop and understand. Maybe you will forgive me as I have chosen to forgive my mother.
VIII
In the park, I see a vision of us. Light roams over a rockpool of free creatures. You and me; two bodies. Your little hand clutched in mine.
IX
Hours. The clock is a conch. I hear time pass but never do I breathe in the salt of the sea. Suddenly they pull you out of me like a memory. I cannot say what will be, this that begins. But I am at the gate, the water’s edge frothy with your first order.