Alone

I lie on my bed
And try to remember pleasure
Given by another
The feeling of being wanted
Slips like a fish
Into a dark crevice.

22.7

Going to the shops

Saturday morning at the shops, and all the others
help her get over herself.
She sees a girl with tapered legs and crutches
who smiles to her friend keeping pace with her
in the wheelchair
Their reflections in the Milady’s window
Do not disturb them.
Not even a black and white polka-dotted shirt
That hangs suspended in the air
From a faceless mannequin.

The air in the butchers is cool.
As she places her slabs of meat
On the counter
She hears the middle-aged man
Next to her speak to a mate
About ‘breakfasting at Musgrave,
doing a shop here, and stopping off at Woolworths
on our way home,’
his desperation to be part of a norm
as well-ironed
as his neat blue shorts.

The drab cashier
is training her daughter
with the high cheekbones
and small shy eyes
to use the debit card machine.
Her gold rings glitter
As she hands over the till slip
As delicately as a deer stepping into a trap.

Checkers heaves like a turbulent sea -
as chaotic as the inside
Of her own head.
The order here
Is random,
And terrifying.

There is so much need.

Can it placate
The loneliness
That burns in her
Like a mad man’s eyes?

A fat woman in a pink and green gingham tent
From which her arms emerge
Like pale pork sausages
Remembers something at the door
Dispatches a girl
to the toiletries shelf
To fetch Flex shampoo
For oily hair.

Two young men
Bare-footed
Even in winter,
Stroke their goatees
As they confer near the Chips shelf.

An elderly couple
Talk to each other
In a language she does not know.
Its harshness
Explains the wrinkles
In the old woman’s face.
Her shoulders under her pink cardigan
Hunched,
Her tired sore body sloping
Towards the floor.
She cannot see the man’s expression,
He is turned away.

‘Masturbation is not a sin’
announces a yellow T-shirt
wrapped around the burly
chest of a vacant-eyed man.

A small black baby is tied
To her mother’s back
With a soft blue blanket.

She remembers being
A child
At OK bazaars,
In Grahamstown, long ago.

The fluorescent lights,
And the Cheezers you bit a tiny hole into
So that you could squirt processed cheese
Into your mouth.

19.7

Passing through

His eyes are holograms
his body
is barely there
in the darkness
beneath the lintel

passing through,
into the courtyard
where children play
there are
trees fringeing
the lattice work
a pale blue summer sky yearns

the lemon juice
is bitter
before he adds sugared water
it cools her mouth
like a breath
close to the nape.

feelings swim up in her
like silvery fish.

she speaks the word
- desire

he hands her a key.

11.7

Chaise longue - a vignette

she reclines,
sips lap sang souchong
from a cracked Delft mug
– brown, like river water
it tastes of smoke

The window behind her empties
Into a riot of roses.
Peonies spill onto soft grass.
The summer is insistent
Only the thin pane of glass keeps it at bay

She half-wishes there were curtains to draw
Against the white light that striates her papery-thin skin

The quiet of the house
Descends like a Cy Twombly wave
Thick, green and languid.

A crumpled lily leans from its vase,
submitting to its reflection
on the polished mahogany table.

Fragrant,
It dusts her hand golden with pollen
As she plucks off,
A drooping leaf.

09.07.08

Pool noodles

Delighted,
the child
Sweeps the surface of the water
With his pool noodle
And speaks of eel-fish
And the little boy who wrote his name
on the sea-shore -
who lost the words forever
When the tide came up -
The story that anchored him
warmly in his bed
the night before.

But the mother who stands in the shallows
Watching over him
Is in agony
Cannot stop herself
From scratching at her wounds
Does not know
How to calm the fury
And the fear
That rose up in
Her like a storm
When she stepped into the water.

The world
Ricochets
Around her
Like a headache
Exploding
Behind the eyes.
Long-lasting,
Inimical.

Fragments burnt into her memory
Like a virus on a hard drive
Impossible to delete

The love she did not find
The love she would give anything to keep.

The love
She thought she needed

The love she discovered was worth nothing at all.

To keep her hands from tearing at her own skin -
She reaches for the shaft of foam

Lets it float her
Through the memory of betrayal

And yet, still, always -
The longing to connect.

She wants the water to pool around her
as cool,
And clear as forgiveness.

She watches her son wield
His wand,
Like a wizard,

Summoning hope.

4.7.08