The moment it locks to.
the wind turns
its circles:
a rotating
tangle –
a passage as pasta
through grey
pewter forks. people
walk grafton st,
swinging fat
shopping bags
like men
at the back doors
of butchers and pieces
of meat. everything locks
to the moment
it locks to. sinks
like a well
digging deep
into earth.
My neighbours next door
walk past my window.
they have a small flat
out the back, and my bedsit
looks into their garden. I wonder
when they walk past
what they think when they see me.
not much of a view, my life;
just a guy on a bed
looking at his phone
or drinking wine typing
on a laptop. I wonder
can they hear my radio,
and turn down the music
when I wonder.
they are both spanish,
or something like that –
portuguese or perhaps south
american. both quite
good looking, quite tall
and well-tanned.
she is a teacher
and he is
some kind of an engineer.
I wonder
do they imagine
as much about me.
probably not. I take showers
and drink with the window open.
they’ve seen me
get dressed
with only my socks on
and eat porridge in the morning
watching tv. not much more
beyond the surface. not a pond.
not a puddle.
just a muddy scum
and pavement
underneath.
Stillness and speed.
white birds on bridge walls
and shoulder-height eyes,
tall standing as about
knee-tall or so dogs. they strut
elemental. marble
flown granite. the carved
pride of feathers.
cruelty, unknowable
eyes. they flex themselves,
wings batting,
tension and scavenging
predatory. such quiet,
such stillness
and speed.
Patryk
he’s an old-fashioned
builder. thick bucket
fingertips, swollen
by alcohol and stress. his wife,
he has told me, has taken
a lover. his daughter
hates the man and of course
he does too, but both can’t afford
to move out. now he sleeps
on the sofa most evenings –
it’s why he needs the overtime
if I can give it. I can: there’s always
something doing. I’ll take advantage
of anyone’s availability. and he’s excellent
on flat roofs and excellent
at plastering. and an ok painter
and ok at basic electrics – though we’re not
insured for that, so he only gets those
in emergencies. he wants to go home
now to poland – leave his wife and her lover
behind. she’s the one apparently
who wanted to come here. and his daughter speaks
better english than he does
and treats him like an idiot
for needing help with forms. and his wife.
eddie says his english was better
10 years ago. he stopped trying lately –
switched his phone to polish
and no longer converses
on the long drives they take out to site.
When we first started drinking
it was summer.
my friend noonie (shaving
since communion)
took heaven on his shoulder,
shrugged its light off –
very brave at 15 –
12 cans of hard cider,
paying with handfuls
of folded up fives
procured from us each one apiece.
I was a late starter.
everyone else had gotten there first.
in the corner of the park
they laughed
and made jokes in the sun
while I marveled
like a child catching a butterfly,
feeling limbs marionette, and float
in the vague separation
between the head and the world
and gone clear. looking out of eyes
and feeling that there was something behind them
which sank
backward suddenly
in a body temperature pool.
it was summer when we first
started drinking.
the days stretched like a long yawn
and ended when we wanted them.
drinking felt like an easy way to stretch that feeling
and I decided I liked it when it stretched.
