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She lives in a time where names
are a generation out of date,
where words freeze just a fraction
away from the Up of her tongue.
Yet she can tell, to the very ounce,
how much tea and sugar
she got each week of the war
and where and what it cost.
She can convert new money to old
and tell the price of everything
in shillings and old pence.
Yet she cannot find her way home
from the shop nor even know why
she went there in the first place.
From Fabric No 1 (Feb 2001)
Wild with sleep and sleeplessness
I kept losing tables, cities,
trees, churches, palaces, entire countries
Where was Egypt?
How could I have misplaced Poland?
When there was only one table left in the world,
breakfast tried to cheer everyone up –
I lost autumn,
ageless autumn, mislaid winter,
all summer I searched for spring
I stole some shadows from my one remaining forest,
some rain from El Nino
I’d appreciate your help
in snatching an hour of lost light back from the moon and stars,
but I guess that’s not going happen
in my lifetime
So much time has passed. Snow-
flakes fall round lit street lamps.
They’re falling in Glasgow
in 1948.
They’re falling in Norway
in 2004.
Would it be good for me
not to say “so much time”?
Would it be better if
I could say “I’m alive
in 1948
and I remember snow-
flakes falling round street lamps
when I was very young
in 2004”?
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