A BURNT LETTER RETRIEVED FROM THE FIRE
we had everything we had nothing
if only I’d been vigilant dragged you to a clinic
with these few words I felt we were married
your bookends we salvaged tears could have filled
Olympic swimming pools my tears my tears
how do I explain things? your daughter is asking me
questions my answers unspool to other questions
she asked love us did my mother I replied
it was madness I desperately she reached out
you episodal in love how you broke down
the extent of how much
FLOATERS
At first, no-one believed me, a lightning shock around five O’clock,
right side, other times more like a constellation of four black stars.
I said out loud: ‘disaster means bad star’ on the way to the ward
where they checked my retina — all fine. Some see gnats or worms
or cobwebs or moons.
For months I’d hoped the collagen would sink, the vitreous would
dissolve enough for the debris to fall down into the eye’s sediment.
They said, don’t worry, your brain will adjust, they’ll fade in months.
Worse in medical rooms, the bright sterile walls, fluorescent bulbs,
vision like a snow globe,
or when under stress, or when crossing a road, and grey pavements
reflect a grey or silver cloud-cover, or when staring at a white bathtub,
or when trying to read a book, with its glossy white page in a whirlpool.
Some befriend them and call them Dave. Or they give them weird pet
names, or accept they’re ageing.
It’s impossible to not think of a pink elephant
once they say don’t think of a pink elephant. It’s not so much the specks
that cause distress, but rather their movement — jigging opacities, squalls
that say something’s terribly wrong in the cosmos — those shadows,
god-awful shadows
that signify
never again
you’ll enjoy
a blue sky.
Flight of the dragonfly 