The Wild Ones

The laundry was on the bottom stair,

ready for unpeeling. I heard

a sensitive fire alarm, a crash.

Bricks in the wash room broke

into a hole like the white dot

of a heart murmur in swirls of blood.

The driver said he had glanced at an ad

for a talk on the History of Indigo,

posted on a tree. Only three bricks.

I leaned forward towards the shine

of bare skin on my knees, closed my eyes

against the car door closing. I wish

the driver had been going somewhere.

I wish I had been going somewhere.

We could have left the hole, together.

Cobblers

Putting make-up on the face or wearing slippers or wearing dresses with long trains to hide their built-up soles, carries the death penalty. Thomas Campanella, City of the Sun, 1623

My slippers were blue wool with a scarlet bobble on the lip

of the turned upper. I asked if I could wear them at noon .

Having warm feet when I walked would help.

My collection of soft shoes was photographed by The Light

pretending to be police. THE SPELL OF SOLES marched

alongside the shuffling Free Slipper Brigade

with their furry banners, topped with pompoms. I tried to spot

the wobble of platform shoes. How muddled we were, slipping

our feet into flesh-fooling weave, under Grandmother Moon.

Grab

You could hear new tines of glass, let out like children,

stick the wind. Then the Shrove ball flew above

the greensand caves, yells drumming it north past

the Brewery and the Dust Destructor. It landed on

a drunk collector shaking his tin. Back from alleys,

yards and windows, up, up until it staggered

toward Turner, Sauberge – where my mended kettle

was ready on Ash Wednesday – the ball bounced off

the diapers of Chitty's brickwork, sprinkled Nanny Puttock

from her fountain – Come in, boys, she beckoned – soared

as far as Pump Corner, brushed black suits hung

along Fielders' window. Tall Percy palmed the last

drop of rain. Because my hands had practised taking

Matchpeller's dog when it sprang, my bones were fit to break

to confiscate the ball and – flash – no-one stopped

a grandmother catch, a game finish. Men boiled over

Master Woodger's muffins. Fattened, Taffer Boult,

dressed as Grandma Wolf, stood up on gouty feet.

Mrs Campbell of Ballimore

'(Sir Henry Raeburn) was often more successful with the portraits of middle-aged or elderly women of pronounced character than he was with those of young and very pretty girls.'

Exhibit note, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

Take note of my mother's white veil

over grey curls –

 despite grey cloth

gloving her right hand

and a forefinger pointing down –

because look, how more nets close

her neck in white –

                        though her dress is blackened

by a cloak.

Whether you acknowledge

that sunset waters its last light over her face

or observe the topmost branches are darkening

with oil, still, her red cheeks plump

all wrinkles out.

I stole her blood

and now he haunts her with me, hunting it.

Woman, Probably One of the Fates

'This is one of a number of representations of hideously ugly old women by the same hand…' exhibition note, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

When wrinkles etch so deeply they lattice neck and muzzle

forehead, skin takes over, makes a fabric of old stone.

What I see in my inner arm when it's bare and bent raising

a glass, is Fate holding her drapery. It's what I expect

though bones would be more likely. Here is an outstanding breastbone.

And veins tunnel out the hand. While marble grabs its opportunity

to empty sockets of eyes and teeth – skin is resistance.