Authors: Helen Dunmore
Its big red body ungulps
from the bowl in the fridge
with a fat shiver.
Glazed
with yellow beading of grease
the soup melts from the edge,
yesterday’s beetroot
turns the texture of tongues
rolling their perfect ovals
out of the silt at the bottom.
Like duck breast-feathers, the dumplings
wisp to the surface, curl
as the soup brightens
just off the boil.
There’ll be pearl onions
– two to a mouthful –
white butter,
then later
plums
piled in a bucket
under the table
thatched with dull leaves
and a black
webbing of twig
over their round
sleep.
When the soup’s done
yellow
constellations
burst on its skin,
bread goes to work
wiping and sopping
the star-scum
set in a slick
on the base of the pot –
chicken fat.
Where the great ship sank I am,
where cathedrals of ice breathe through me
down naves of cold
I tread and roll,
where the light goes
and the pressure weighs
in the rotten caves of an iceberg’s side
I glide,
I am mute, not breathing,
my shoulders hunched to the stream
with the whales, drowsing.
Bells rang in my blood
as I went down
purling, heart over heel
through the nonchalant
fish-clad ocean –
her inquisitive kiss
slowed me to this
great cartwheel.
Down I go, tied to my rope.
I have my diving reflex to sister me,
and the blubbery sea cow
nods, knowing me.
There is blood in my veins
too thick for panic,
there is a down
so deep a whale
thins to a sheet of paper
and here I hang.
I will not drown.
The diving reflex can enable the human body to shut down and maintain life for as long as forty minutes underwater at low temperatures.
Two miles or so beyond
the grey flank of the farm
and the wall of gravestones
the oncoming rain
put an edge on the mountains,
they were blue and sure
as the blade of a pocket knife
whizzed to a razor traverse
cutting the first
joint of my thumb –
It was stitched, not bleeding,
the dark threads in the sea were weeds
and my son was packing them
between the stones of his dam.
He was holding back the river
while the mountain punctured clouds
to hold back rain
no farther off than we’d cycled
bumping towards our swim.
In the grey purse of Balnacarry
there were red pebbles and smooth pebbles
and the close grain of the water,
the men were absent –
one walking in the woods
one fishing off the rocks –
the child behind me built up his dam
through which the downpour would blossom
in the sea at Balnacarry –
it was cold, but not lonely
as I stripped and swam.
Boys on the top board
too high to catch.
Noon is painting them out.
Where the willow swans
on the quarry edge
they tan and sweat
in the place of divers
with covered nipples –
Olympians,
that was the way of it.
Boys in the breeze
on the top board
where the willow burns
golden and green
on feet grappling –
boys fooling
shoulder to shoulder,
light shaking.
The lake’s in shadow,
the day’s cooling,
time to come down –
they stub their heels on the sun
then pike-dive
out of its palm.
Sylvette scrubbing,
arms of a woman
marbled with muscle
swabbing the sill,
tiny red grains
like suck kisses
on Sylvette’s skin,
Sylvette’s wrists
in and out of the water
as often as otters.
She grips that pig of a brush
squirts bristle
makes the soap crawl then
wipes it all up.
Father,
I remember when you left us.
I knew all along
it was going to happen.
You gave me bread but wouldn’t look at me
and Hansel couldn’t believe it
because you were his hero,
but I loved you and knew
when you stroked my hair you were bound to leave us.
It was Hansel who crumbled the bread
while I skipped at your side and pretended
to prattle questions and guess nothing.
Father,
did you drive home quickly or slowly,
thinking of your second family
waiting to grab your legs with shrieks of ‘
Daddy!
’
and of your new wife’s face, smoothing
now she sees you’re alone?
Father,
we love it here in the forest.
Hansel’s got over it. I’ve learned to fish
and shoot rabbits with home-made arrows.
We’ve even built ourselves a house
where the wolves can’t get us.
But wolves don’t frighten us much
even when they howl in the dark.
With wolves, you know where you are.
This is what I want –
to be back again
with the night to come –
slipper-bags across our saddles
how fast we rode
and all for nothing.
Your lips on his lips
your hand in his hand
as you went from the dance.
We heard Mass at dawn,
When I knelt for communion
it was the hem of your white dress
I felt in my mouth,
it was your lips moving.
This is all I want
to be there again
with the night to come –
meet me where the fire
lights the bayou
watch my sweat shine
as I play for you.
It is for you I play
my voice leaping the flames,
if you don’t come
I am nothing.
If I wanted totems, in place of the poles
slung up by barbers, in place of the clutter
of knife-eyed kids playing with tops and whips,
and boys in cut-down men’s trousers
swaggering into camera,
I’d have skips.
First, red and white bollards
to mark the road-space they need.
A young couple in stained workwear
– both clearly solicitors –
act tough with the driver, who’s late.
The yellow god with its clangorous emptiness
sways on the chains.
The young man keeps shouting
BACK A LITTLE!
as the skip rides above his BMW.
The driver, vengeful, drops it askew.
Next, the night is alive with neighbours
bearing their gifts, propitiations
and household gods – a single-tub washing-machine,
a cat-pissed rug, two televisions.
Soundless as puppets, they lower them
baffled in newspaper, then score
a dumbshow goal-dance to the corner.
Washed silk jacket by Mesa
in cream or taupe, to order,
split skirt in lime
from a selection at Cardoon,
£
84.99,
lycra and silk body, model’s own,
calf-skin belt by Bondage,
£
73.99,
tights from a range at Pins,
deck-shoes, white, black or strawberry,
all from Yoo Hoo,
baby’s cotton trousers and braces
both at Workaday
£
96.00; see list for stockists.
Photographs by André McNair,
styled by Lee LeMoin,
make-up by Suze Fernando at Face the Future,
hair by Joaquim for Plumes.
Models: Max and Claudie.
Location: St James Street Washeteria
(courtesy of Route Real America
and the Cape Regis Hotel),
baby, model’s own,
lighting by Sol,
time by Accurist.
I shall be the first to lead the Muses to my native land
VIRGIL
The silent man in Waterstones
LOVE
on one set of knuckles
HATE
on the other
JESUS
between his eyes
drives his bristling blue skull
into the shelves,
thuds on
CRIME/FANTASY
shivers a stand of Virago Classics
head-butts Dante.
The silent man in Waterstones
looks for a bargain.
Tattered in flapping parka
white eyes wheeling
he catches
light on his bloody earlobes
and on the bull-ring
he wears through his nose.
The silent man in Waterstones
raps for attention.
He has got Virgil by the ears:
primus ego in patriam mecum
…
He’ll lead the Muse to a rat-pissed underpass
teach her to beg
on a carpet of cardboard
and carrier bags.
This is the wardrobe mistress, touching
her wooden wardrobe. Here is her smokey
cross of chrysanthemums
skewed by the font.
They have put you in this quietness
left you here for the night.
Your coffin is like a locker
of mended ballet shoes.
You always looked in the toes.
There was blood in them, rusty
as leaves, blood from ballerinas.
Tonight it is All Souls
but you’ll stop here quietly,
only the living have gone to the cemetery
candles in their hands
to be blown about under the Leylandii.
In your wooden wardrobe, you’re used to waiting.
You know these sounds to the bone:
they are showing people to their seats
tying costumes at the back.
Everything they say is muffled,
the way it is backstage.
A stagehand pushes your castors
so you glide forward.
You know Manon is leaning
on points against a flat,
nervously flexing
her strong, injured feet,
you’re in position too, arms crossed,
touching your bud of wood.
You needn’t dance, it’s enough
to do what you always did.
That was the second bell. You feel it
tang through the crush. The wind
pours on like music
drying everyone’s lips,
they’re coming, your dancers.
You hate the moment of hush.
There. The quick luck-words
knocking on wood.
When you've got the plan of your life
matched to the time it will take
but you just want to press
SHIFT/BREAK
and print over and over
this is not what I was after
this is not what I was after
,
when you've finally stripped out the house
with its iron-cold fireplace,
its mouldings, its mortgage,
its single-skin walls
but you want to write in the plaster
â
This is not what I was after
,'
when you've got the rainbow-clad baby
in his state-of-the-art pushchair
but he arches his back at you
and pulps his Activity Centre
and you just want to whisper
â
This is not what I was after
,'
when the vacuum seethes and whines in the lounge
and the waste-disposal unit blows,
when tenners settle in your account
like snow hitting a stove,
when you get a chat from your spouse
about marriage and personal growth,
when a wino comes to sleep in your porch
on your Citizen's Charter
and you know a hostel's opening soon
but your headache's closer
and you really just want to torch
the bundle of rags and newspaper
and you'll say to the newspaper
â
This is not what we were after
,
this is not what we were after
.'