RED

I sometimes catch her staring into a kitchen cupboard
Still and sick with the terror of remembering.

She won’t let me touch them
My great-grandmother’s possessions
Scattered around the house
Old-fashioned lockets draped here and there
Ugly gold things gathering dust.

I know of the trauma
At least I suspect
A girl broken in half
Private places infected
A dark encounter in the dripping forest
Before she met dad, I think.

Red half-bitten apples swallowed by grass
Upturned basket found only in storybooks
Fantasy picnics in fairy forests
Impossible strawberry muffins
Laughter in slow motion, skipping
A howl moving between the trees
And nobody heard her screams
Or mopped the blood
I know that much.

Now she fears the colour red
Unable to post letters
Regurgitating in the supermarket
Row upon row – cherries, raspberries, pomegranates
Stems of rhubarb, split melons, cranberries wilting in the aisles
The stench of that summer.

I help her as best I can
Taking the rubbish out, sorting the bills
Speaking to strangers
The cor blimey workmen come to mend
Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door
The mundane cliches of everyday
That rot time
That drag mum further from her memories
Further from that day.

But soon I will leave, go to university
Study classics and ethology and not care why
Wear red to campus parties, eat cherries all night
Suck on cans of Coke and scarlet sweets
Play with dogs in the street, not caring if they bite
And I’ll think of that torn crimson cape, and mum
Trapped in that cottage, hiding in the kitchen
Staring into empty cupboards
The bowls of blood oranges left untouched
Juices unspilt
Flesh intact.

 

 

Selkie

I saw him standing beside the rock
On the edge of a silver Scottish loch.

Jet black hair, eyes the same
Without a voice, without a name.

Approaching me he drew a smile
Lips still wet from a distant isle.

Taking my hand he pulled me down
His touch inviting me to drown.

In his arms I deftly fell
Surrendering to a selkie spell.

Then he left me in the sand
A seashell placed within my hand.

I know not where he came or went
Or why a selkie man to me was sent.

But sometimes I sit beside that rock
Peering into that Scottish loch.

Hoping to catch sight of him once more
My selkie from a Scottish shore.