But it's only a short walk to the station. trees cold leaves fallen, wind sits on nasturtiums. theres a dead weta on bricks, cobwebs blown from a blue chair she could run to the woodshed split wood for fire, kned dough bake it, eat it warm with cinnamon butter. she'll stand on the platform, no umbrella, the wind biting her skin. on the train she'll think about buying a hat, gloves, scarf, maybe. she counts coins enough for a ticket & 2 pears for her mother; it starts to rain. Clay Womb rain behind this wall, behind me, gushes, a rusted drainpipe, broken water filing a hole it creates as it falls thoughts of wombs, you, conceived beneath a willow, our transit van parked on a dirt track on the way back from sweetwaters, your father filling a billy with river water for the radiator today, words from you out of the blue, down a wire to this screen, you're carrying uncertain seed I howl, claw for clay shape a womb like bowl, to warm the child who will fall amongst tall grass and rust E tu whakaruru hau nei (standing as shelter to the wind)                               For Muriel Poole 'who should have been my grandmother' I'd wake to voices passing the window of my room, spin arms outstretched up the long hallway through light cast by coloured glass panes in your front door into the kitchen you boiling eggs on the green gas cooker, grilling toast for soldiers while i drank cocoa in my favorite china cup then the laundry, me turning the hand wringer for boiled sheets, you stirring the copper with strong hands we'd pick tamarillo, hunt for fallen grapefruit & lemons in your overgrown back garden, hold the fruit to our noses & laugh beneath the open corner window, amid fruit smells & sun we'd sit on the old bench seat covered in peggy-square rugs. you'd read turf digest teach me to pick winners, & knit, I was 7 and safe within your patience some days you'd put on your leopard skin pill box hat, we'd catch the bus, have lunch at the top of Farmers & you'd buy me lace hankies, once a pair of burmuda shorts & it rained, but I stood mouth open to catch drops from god praying he never took me away from you so who left your body broken, lying on the floor bathed in patches of light cast by the coloured glass in your front door as you drank, drowned in blood. from blackened eyes, who did you see? I saw coloured glass, smashed it & saw the death of god Innuendo they move within the small space of the blue room stepping around, past each other sitting, he rests his head on his desk, she stops pacing, reaches to touch his back, turns to the half curtained window, watches a swing on a heavy chain, her words, from behind a veil he says his wife is obsessed with after match cricket interviews, watching so she can say, see? he said it again! with a silver pen he begins to write, stops, removes his glasses, cleans them, says Eros is casting a shadow she sites, hands between knees, thinks, the gold on his finger is melting, she'll wrap it up in the paper he'll give her, take it home, put it under her pillow, close the curtains, rid her room of shadows All works copyright .

BMP4 nzpoetsonline

BMP4 nzpoetsonline

Carole Nelson Phillips, New Zealand