the book of arrivals

Cooking and cleaning done, Sitting at the upstairs window; Sunday-best twopiece and heavy butterfly brooch, A cloud of talcum in sherbet pink;   Polishing the classroom floor made Bloated sponges of her knees; So hot last week almost naked under nylon workcoat, But today is day off and sardines for tea with a thin slice of   Cold beetroot and lettuce from Dad’s allotment; Rolls kiss of lilac lipstick in the dressing-table mirror, Laughs: All dressed up and nowhere to go! Nods at runners and riders on the street below:   Here comes the ginger cat with its tail up, Look at old woman and dog they walk the same, See Mr Upstairs On The Corner and his backward boy and Mrs Downstairs Over The Road with a black man;   Checks hats coats hair with a giggle, Pronounces age and frailty and degree of Meanness and goodness and the kinship of brutes; Divines several errands from the back catalogue of Interviews and habits and the movement of troops; Smiles while embroidering the dr...

You made me bark my shin, It was the pedal of Dad’s bike in the darkness Of the living room   - odd name living room.   You dragged me through the various ochres of night and dark, But I did not wander in the park, Nor did I throw stones at lovers;   The bark was the only sound in that muffled place of shadows When I crept from my blanket bed to the living room, to kill the carriage clock.   I felt my way to the sideboard, Barked my shin and stuck my finger in The back of the clock to stop it striking the hours and halves   Which had been keeping me awake; I had school next morning and I had been trying to force myself to go to sleep.   It was the small hours but Those hours are anything but small and after stopping the clock, I floundered awake in a great abyss of silence. (A memory of childhood prompted by reading Once It Was the Colour of Saying , by Dylan Thomas)