2019.3 Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows

She’s been told, over and over:
It’s easier to regret something you have done
Than something you haven’t.
She’s thinking, in particular, today,
Of the near misses.

The declarations of affection a breath away,
The errant gust tucked behind her teeth.
Likewise the cutting insult,
The coup de grâce to a parasitic union,
Forever spiralling on staircases.

She thinks of the last-minute turns
Not taken.
Country lanes still ravelled.
The road that’s more than familiar,
The route engrained in synapses,
Waking and sleeping, unrested,
Until all she can do is visit and
Revisit – shopping list of the
Undone accompanying the miles.

The house unbought, the home unmade,
Its neighbourhood now a maze of gentrification and
Soaring investment potential.
The hand untaken, the
Toe-tucked farewell,
Breaths pluming, backlit for all time in
Green, amber, red, beep, beep, beep…

She is thinking of the monuments unvisited
Today. She should be thinking of
Everything else. Everyone else.
She is thinking, instead, of skin untouched,
Lips untasted, breath unshared,
Knows how Too Late feels in the
Monthly crossing-off, the floodplain tedium.

She is thinking about the
“Actually”s unsung, clutched in her gullet:
Actually, don’t touch that
Actually, that’s not his name
Actually, that’s racist
Actually, she wants you to leave her alone
Actually, I want you to leave me alone
Actually, I want you to leave
Actually, I want you

She is thinking how close
Habit is to fear,
How she inhabits a groove laid out
By so many – too many –
Before her.
Whether or not this is her path,
She’s knee deep in other people’s
Straight and narrow.
It will take a miracle.
It will take a more than careless conflagration.

She finds herself hoping, for once,
The words spilling fresh from her lips,
Hearing them for the first time in years
Of repetition, no longer smooth.
Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Mundus tecum.
Benedicta tua. Benedicta tua.
Benedicta tua.


Fragments of this haunted me all evening. It’s been a funny sort of day.

#5 Metropolitan

I have become acquainted, lately,
With the hands of strangers.
Mindful of small spaces,
We avoid each others' eyes
But I find myself
Hypnotised by signs of lives
Lived invisible to me except
For telltale skin, hints from nails,
The way some grips never falter
And others slip, regrouping at
Every other breath.

I've become obsessed with knuckles,
Wondering at how they buckle minds
To poles as their owners shift and sway,
Maybe already waiting for their bodies
At their destinations,
Or lingering behind.

No wonder that the strap-hangers
Seem to mourn,
Bereft of spirit,
Antennae coiled,
Clipping the close air around them into
The space defined by music, maps,
And the convenient trap of handspace,
Their lives carved into
Scrimshawed anchors.

I uncouple, step free
To find myself reflected
In the fleeting, myriad slivers
Of commuters' reflections,
Select a face to best fit
And slip, another salmon,
Up to air, to reach myself again,
Running my fingers in greeting
Over my own unspoken grain.