Armada

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.