There are things much harder to say than this
How
I planted you
not
in a jam jar filled with loam,
not
in an urn of warm fine sand
with slender
girls holding hands
dancing,
dancing
around
a room in Rome.
No.
This box is not
right. I hate the fact it's called a casket.
My selection of green oak: "Durable,
Canadian, Coarse Grain."
Too much like
the receptionist's counter at the dentist.
The
even square, holding your name
in Edwardian
Script or Lucida Calligraphy or Times New Roman.
My
heart, how we would have laughed at Bold Perpetua Titling,
how much you
look like a batch of cigars, flat and gently breathing.
A weekend alone in Paris makes no difference at all
The rattling
lift at the Hotel St Boniface,
My
too-tight new shoes.
Turn
left into Rue de Médicis,
Move towards
the lake, the children in tartan coats, their battleships.
Bretagne,
Lorraine, Foudre; the undefeated Fantasque.
It
was warmer yesterday at the Tuileries.
Light
aluminium chairs on the gravel,
Tables
marked with circles, glass tulips of eaux de vie:
Kirsch,
Poire. Framboise. Mirabelle.
The
air moves as a man passes by.
I
catch the darkness of a Chesterfield, the oyster blue of a scarf.
He doesn't
turn, doesn't slow down, doesn't change pace.
I
want to say it doesn't matter. It isn't you.
It
does matter. They are all you.
Je Reviens
They say, "he
can't hear and can no longer see; he won't even know you're you.
Did
you hear? Mrs B set fire to her bed and we put it out with her tea"
Is
that you? He says, as I know he will, and Is that the same perfume?
I
brush my wrist across his cheek, he sniffs and he smiles a bit too.
Did
I buy it for you on a trip? A trip to The Great Antilles?
He can hear a
little, he sees a little, he knows that I'm in the room.
I
think I remember now, he says, was the bottle round and blue?
Under his sheet
is a boy of twelve, not a man of eighty-three.
That
you? He says, as I know he will, and Is that the same perfume?
A nurse called
Kingston bathes him and brings us all the news
in
a voice that feels like sun on rain on the slopes of Blue Hills Peak.
He can't hear
so well, he can't see so well, so I bring the Peak to his room.
This morning a
lady of ninety went out in her cardie and shoes,
she
made her way to the motorway, in a fuss that the post hadn't been.
That
you? He says, as I know he will, and Is that the same perfume?
Violet,
jasmine, bergamot. Amber, clove
and musk. It was '52
when
my father returned from the Antilles with his eyes more milk than blue.
They say he can't
hear, can no longer see, but I know he knows I'm me.
That
you? He says, as I know he will, and Is that the same perfume?
And then
there was that other morning
when I couldn't find my book;
you
know the one with the worn fern cover?
I've
taken to carrying it in my handbag
to read on the over-ground.
I avoid the tube since I saw a list
of
10 items most commonly found
down the back of the seats.
A
significant amount of Yen,
lettuce
heads,
semen
from more than four sources.
Although lettuce heads have little
scarcity value,
to
lose one would be devastating.
Unpack my shopping bag or basket:
Tomatoes
for tomorrow,
chops
for this evening, cheese for after.
The disbelief of my hand reaching down again
and
again to the bottom of the bag,
into
corners too small to shelter a lettuce.
Perhaps it was never there;
just
anticipated.
Maybe
the work-experience person failed to pack it.
Did
it roll unnoticed from the space I made at the top,
in
a sop to my anxiety
about
the tenderness of leaves?
Should
I have forced it further down?
Should
I have constructed a safer place?
There
is room in my handbag.
Thoughts inside a rented silver Opal
It's the day we
visit Portofino. I get sick,
lie
in the car,
in
the back,
in
the shade of a eucalyptus.
The
footfalls of couples,
perhaps
families, flap down the hill,
to
the sea.
Their
voices flutter.
"Are
you hungry or shall we explore?"
"Look
at the boats. They're so, just so."
"I
know, it's beautiful, isn't it?"
Others look at
the water like it's just one more thing they don't get.
They
say stuff like, "Why did you drink so much last night?"
Or,
"You know I don't" and
"It
doesn't matter any more."
I know I'm sick
because I sleep
in
the middle of the day, in our hired Europcar that smells of
cleaning
fluid and has no dust.
No
dust anywhere,
not
even inside the moulded shelves in the passenger door.
You
tap on the window,
hold
up a Fanta with a pink straw, spinning in the wind.
"How're
you feeling, baby?"
I'm
looking for dust, sand, or those precious pieces
of
smooth white shell we find in our sandals,
our
curled up towels, our underwear
at
the end of a day at the beach.
Whatever
happens, I don't want to miss anything.
Balthazar
Bakery, Spring Street
Curious
how the urge to be
up
and outta here
supersedes
your desire,
if
it had ever been,
to
leave a note, and as I lie listening
to
your tip-tap-toeing
between
cupboards, chest of drawers,
shower & loo,
my
willingness to engage in anything
morning-like with you
is
overtaken by thoughts of medialunas,
and
galette des rois
at
Balthazar Bakery on Spring St, where, in the miserly hours
we
saw men in full-length sky blue aprons,
drizzle
foccacia, boil bagels; two held great cream bowls
of
batter for hazelnut waffles
and
buckwheat crepes and a son, Francois (I think), dark eyed and in the street
already,
writing on a board
"Confiture
du Jour -
Fraise
des Bois
Grenade
et Citron Vert"
He
understands my 10.00 a.m evocations, my sling-backs, my evening coat
over
uncovered legs,
the
speed of redness round my cheeks, my teeth tearing a tartine, my hands
around the first chocolat chaud.