Life sometimes seems like
forty-something Januaries,
diaries filled with good intentions
more than words.
And sometimes life,
when left alone with piles of diaries
filed away in boxes in my attic,
seems as if it's full to overflowing.
Sometimes life lived
backwards makes more sense,
each empty day an entry
too exciting to confine
to forty-something
dusty books in boxes.
She stops me, geisha graciously.
Five minutes - that is all -
a picture maybe,
for a magazine,
for men, she says,
an article on how you dress.
“So why,” she asks,
“The suit, the shoes, the scarf, the glasses?”
Because, I think, I’m in disguise,
the grey, the brown, the olive, navy blue,
the moleskin, suede, the fleece,
designer glasses, hair cut boyishly,
the silver ear rings, one to right and two to left,
the open neck of one of fifteen shirts
(each cotton, white, its collar cut away)
its doubled cuffs both fastened with a silver stud,
my nails varnished matt and short-cut,
breasts pressed close to chest –
Enough.
I smile.
“Because,” I say,
“I dress for comfort.”
You’re Prospero and Caliban on Quadra,
grounded, painting death and life in threes.
You show me your Mirandas (one is sleeping
on her mother, two are willing me to leave).
And I am Sycorax, condemned to lie
among your rocks and stones and trees.
The game begins: the green becomes
a muddy brown as boots blur touchlines.
Somewhere, there among the boys,
she finds a line she cannot cross
and leaves the pitch to join the others.
The edgy, endless ocean moves. Across
its length, its breadth, its past and present
people travel: hopeful, homeless.
Somewhere in the crossings and returns
the émigrés emerge, they change: we merge.
The station’s loudness crowds our senses:
people shout to one another, rush across
the concourse, run toward their homes.
You’re leaving; I am staying. Strange:
you’re standing still and I am moving on.
I cross the line, prepare to emigrate
but I would rather merge with you,
would rather stay with you at home.
They said you jumped, but not like that:
they made it so much more anonymous.
It hit you once, then rumbled to a halt
and hopefully you’re quiet now.
As I listened to the rumble under the quietness,
five times it hit me: everything is meant to be.
Five times amongst friends, I felt the stillness talk,
warmth welling up, exploding on my face.
I’ll never know you now, but know the place,
the platform edge, and will not join you yet.
I sat and was silent last night at Friends House, in Euston Road. Really still. One of us spoke, mentioning the rumble of the trains and saying that in her stillness the trains didn't matter. I agreed silently.
A little while later, and then time and time again, I was hit by a deep, wide euphoria, a firm sense that everything was for the best. It was meaningful only to me, so I kept it to myself. But I smiled: oh, how I smiled.
When we'd finished and shaken hands, we introduced ourselves. I hesitated, grimacing. I was en bloke and now don't like using my bloke name in such places of utter honesty. So my friend named me. "Come on Sarah," she said. And I named myself and of course it was all alright.
When I reached Baker Street, on the way home, I heard that there had been a 'person under a train' at Finchley Road. A suicide I assume. This is the same line that rumbles under Euston Road.
A macabre connection.
You (and I
can safely call you that)
are whole
and that's enough.
Not a hole
into which
I can screw
my preconceptions;
nor a screen
onto which
I project
my views;
not a mannequin,
a lifeless body
you can
carve or starve.
Entire and whole, in the
present, past and future:
loved, loving, lovely
- that's enough.
Look! You see my shape
across the one-way gangway,
unlike you, without a converse.
I meet your eye, reach out
and your eye doesn’t dye
but it fixes me all the same.
Look! You glance; I smile.
Look! You whisper; yes, it’s me.
Look! The circle tightens.
I frighten you
and cannot laugh
and will not cry.
I too am amputated.
I, an object, look for meaning,
feeling deep, immense and helpless.
