The Key

I have a light
In my little life,
Someone holds a candle
Someone else a knife.

One shines in darkness
The other in sunlight,
I could have hope
Or end this fight.

Two paths cross here
My state of mind.
Will it be damnation
Or hope that I find.

Someone holds a candle
Someone else a knife
Who holds the key
To my little life.

Adolescent Memory

Humming to herself

she stood, half dressed

slip and bra already on

one foot upon the bed.

She rolled a stocking between

her nimble thumbs and fingers

not noticing my presence,

her angled reflection

in the bedroom mirror.

I spied the scene,

voyeur

                 or victim.

She rolled the 15 denier ring

over her ballet pointed toe,

smoothing as she stretched material

and hopes

higher and higher.

Sheer material against still youthful skin

dark band contrasting the pale

translucence of her thigh.

Then suddenly she dropped her leg

smoothed down her slip

and closed the door

with a sigh.

Diaspora

Eating Onions

Eating pickled onions

by the jar

shut behind doors

that only open inwards.

Strange how children become

accustomed to

strangers at home,

whispered intimacies,

an extra button

undone

on mother’s blouse.

Father never brought

work home.

Nights on the tiles

hid his infidelities.

Six and half a dozen

I’m eating onions

they bring tears to my eyes.

Millington Pastures (East Yorkshire)

Abandoning our car in the woods

we head off up through the Pastures,

as the low winter sun catches one slope

we pull our fleeced envelope

tight against Natures extremes.

Kestrels, like tethered kites, hover.

Casting their beady eye over

steep, grassy valley sides

where still, cowering prey hide

not daring to break cover.

Shaggy, Highland cattle graze,

as the narrow valley winds its way

between high, banked walls

where echoing calls of crows 

break the shortening day.

Water bursts into life from below,

bubbles its way to the nearest hollow

where sheep come down to drink

and ramblers, like us, pause to think

and reflect before we go.

China ballerinas

They are two porcelain figurines,

dancing about each other.  Afraid to touch

in their brittle situation, in case

the brush of a hand

reminds them of the conversation

they’d rather avoid.

Their bed, once a sweet battlefield

is quiet now, trenches dug either side,

neither will yield,

a flag of truce flying in the cold air.

Fragile, easily broken.