Devilment (#litres_trial_promo)
Why Things Remained the Same (#litres_trial_promo)
Poetry Lesson (#litres_trial_promo)
Waiting in Macedonia (#litres_trial_promo)
Khartoum (#litres_trial_promo)
Lockerbie (#litres_trial_promo)
So Many Different Lengths of Time (#litres_trial_promo)
Drinking to the Muse (#litres_trial_promo)
Circus Act (#litres_trial_promo)
The Mirror’s Apprentice (#litres_trial_promo)
Garden Lore (#litres_trial_promo)
In Perspective (#litres_trial_promo)
Full Circle World (#litres_trial_promo)
Into the Blue (#litres_trial_promo)
Sea Saw (#litres_trial_promo)
The Brackets (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Other Works (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
1 the armada (#ulink_dae0483a-7dd3-5aa8-ba3f-3ddc1c2f2b49)
Cinders (#ulink_1400b61a-aa32-5ef3-9b2a-57fdde658860)
You never went to a ball, ever.
In all your years sweeping kitchens
No fairy godmother appeared, never.
Poor, poor sweetheart,
This rough white cloth, fresh from the hospital laundry,
Is the only theatre-gown you’ve ever worn.
No make-up. Hair matted with sweat.
The drip beside your bed discontinued.
Life was never a fairy-tale.
Cinders soon.
The Armada (#ulink_050229d2-32e0-5c1d-87ef-08915cc65812)
Long long ago
when everything I was told was believable
and the little I knew was less limited than now,
I stretched belly down on the grass beside a pond
and to the far bank launched a child’s armada.
A broken fortress of twigs,
the paper-tissue sails of galleons,
the waterlogged branches of submarines –
all came to ruin and were on flame
in that dusk-red pond.
And you, mother, stood behind me,
impatient to be going,
old at twenty-three, alone,
thin overcoat flapping.
How closely the past shadows us.