Sunrise for the Blind - Sneak Peek

Rescue

I found you in a carpark

At six months,

Scrawny-skinned, tick-headed

And chicken-nicking smart.

You slunk, belly-low,

Tail down,

Through my open door

To a bowl of food,

A blanket-warm chair,

And five others just like you.

Away from throwing things

And childish squeals,

You still growled:

nyang-nyang-nyang

As you chewed.

Then you grew strong and safe,

Loved.

At nine years,

You are bunting-brave,

Purr-peddling and lap-curling warm.

A bond mate,

Protector,

Patriarch to your curious clowder.

You have stayed chicken-nicking smart,

But no longer growl as you chew.

Love

I wear my heart

On a baggy sleeve

And fall too fast in love,

Even a little.

Against a lamp post

With midnight stars.

Beside a church

In between grave-grass – knee high.

A stranger’s house

With sunlight adorning

Your morning back.

Pain

Pain is individual,

A fingerprint of firing synapses.

I shrug at a grinding knee,

You shriek at a stubbed toe.

Pain cannot be measured

Like dicks on a table.

Grin and bear it…

Grit your teeth…

Just ignore it…

It lets you know you’re alive…

All said (I suspect),

By those who do not know pain –

Not true pain,

The inescapable,

The kind that sits on your shoulder

Flinging its arm about your neck –

Just because it can.

What I Have Found

I lounged today in bra-less splendour,

Tits hanging

Beneath a sheet wrapped

Waist-tight to my toes –

My hair tied once behind my head,

Pulled up from nape to crown.

I ate an omelette of four eggs,

And white bread with butter - thick.

I lounged today in words alone,

Bone bare, like a madhouse veteran.

If someone stole a glance,

Through my curtain crack,

They would not see what I have found,

But a naked woman, beneath a sheet

With mussy hair, scattered crumbs

And greasy fingerprints on paper.

I Remember

I remember,

The smell of your stockings,

The raspy feel of them against

My little fingers clutched beneath your skirt.

I remember,

The downy hairs on the side of

Your face in the sunshine

Through the bedroom window.

I remember,

The press of your shoulder against mine,

The laugh in your eyes,

The cut of your voice,

The presence that filled an entire room

And forced others to turn and stare.

I remember,

Your screams,

Your cries,

Your crumpled fists beating your leg.

I remember,

The taste of your vomit in my mouth,

The crack of your neck as it flopped.

I remember,

The blue of your lips,

Your soundless chest,

The stillness of your pulse.

Change One Thing

There is a malignancy

That does not

Stand up or

Stand out or

Stand for anything in some eyes.

It banquets

While good hearts

Starve.

Why do we allow it?

Because we do not want

To know it is there.

It slips in plain sighted shadows,

Amid our breakfast bowls

And chicken dinners,

The clothes we wear,

Press-ganged accoutrement,

Hair from the heads of desperate mothers,

Blood from the hungry

To save our lives.

It takes no courage to turn away.

But to wipe the shadow with light?

To reach out?

To stand in battered shoes,

And change one thing?