WORDNEWS27

They cannot dismantle the bread.
The kitchen wafts of yeast. The field is
Full of people greening. A father flocks
his young, a daughter hands her mother
her cane, though in her mind
she’s still unfettered. A cat oils her paws
with her tongue and

although the billboards tell us otherwise
a kiss is still all that matters. We talked about it
this morning over breakfast before that time
we spend cogging, day after day we blow
the sunlight. They cannot dismantle the bread.
My chick smiles inside my arms’ circle
my soles have brushed so many a flower,

in many a fenceless field. The butter we unfurl
macadamizes the thick slice for chunky marmalade.
They cannot dismantle them either. In our hollow stomach,
they spread a meadow. Our blues and browns and greens
blend the stained glass we’d cut on.
When you blank and I quake
see-through like a tiny snowflake wilting

a crust of bread frames our chests, and out of the blue
fairies sure up the wood in the bones
we’d imagined dismantled. If you let them,
they moulder under the thundering train,
they dismantle at a peep. Or so we figured.
But fingers nudge and irises skew and when
we sunder from the moorings
the lake and the valley fling a line and a buoy,
the crust rounds our lips and the butter
rears our mouths on what it is to quench a rash.
Then, we fit into the river, glide past glittering stones

and circumnavigate fallen branches
some of which firm up the bed never to be dismantled.

In the kitchen at home, riverside on the far side of
the world, in a factory where they make
dried yeast, we eat sandwiches
drink milky tea and talk.
The dog gulps up the crumbs we shed
we speak Everyday and gesture sunlight.
On the wall, we are a big blotty shadow
no one can dismantle.

The Lake is a summer poem, a celebration of warm summer days spent together outside.

The Lake – Summer Poem

All year the dripping sky plunged into the dip
In the landscape; light and crystalline 
Rain had partied there, sketched in by wintering winds.
All year it swelled inside the deep cavity.
Drops clattered like seashells, water poppies
Sloshed veils of yellow rays across the lake. 
You could spot purple mosquitos and blue dragonflies
From the wooden rowing boat we had fixed up 
Out of scraps one warm day the rain wouldn’t let up
In the middle of our summering. Once afloat,
We would sky an oar and each stroke into the deep
Rippled a fish and rocked a water lily.
Within the crutches, the rudders nestled we were
Hanging off the beaks of birds inside the mould 
On the thwart. They would tell us how it is
To fly for miles and miles and how plumes want 
Springing when the long nights floor the early bright. We 
Could tell the shore was listening even adrift down-lake it 
Framed the water and the fields beyond and on it
We’d lodge our boat for the next day
Fire-side

                  until the day, dusk weighed anchor at dawn.  
Now the clouds were fumettos and 
The lake was a pop-up book with us in it, the sun 
A giant reading lamp. We heard how the sand had 
Beached a fish and stuck on so that the angler threw it 
Back in and how the bird considered snapping it up 
Mid-air only to be nudged out of the way by the breeze 
And how what we said nursed the ladybug many miles 
Away. On the whitecaps, a grey heron pencilled 
A map for the catfish and us as far as the slough and 
Through the cattails and the floating sweet grass of 
The moor and beyond to where we’d dry off before 
Going home for iced tea with a slice of lemon. Soon,
We’d be falling then wintering before budding and 
Summering again.

Warriors is a lockdown poem, a reflection on how for some, home can be difficult, especially if you aren’t allowed to spend time away from home.

Warriors – Lockdown Poem

Never once do you picture a warrior as a little bundle in a crib sobbing or hungry or afraid. In this army, every warrior has an arsenal.

Aged three and a half, I dug boulders into the ground to shoulder a fat wall. Around it, I ploughed a trench and filled a moat. I am a castle, a fort, a warrior with a shield the size of a mountain. His fists don’t scare me now and from the watchtower, purple skin looks like a butterfly tattoo. My sister and I taught each other morse-code and then I drilled Harry and she scribbled the instructions on a scrap of paper and briefed Chloe under the desk in maths. At night, we cable light signals from the dungeon we pitch tents in the crib we hurl mud and play warfare. Battleplans. At home, I wear shining armour, Monkey snug between my chest and the breastplate. My weapons; a sword in one hand, a bow in the other and arrows on my back. Hideouts; the bathroom, under my bed, the house when no one is there. Key manoeuvres; crawling into through the kitchen door and making it into the back garden without anyone seeing you. There’s long grass there. Longterm strategy; jumping the garden wall or better still, taking off in a fighter jet like the one I saw whizzing past during the air show that Sunday with Mum and my sister, the one that squiggled white smoke across the blue sky or the Red Arrow that dove down straight like a pole only to flip and rocket the last second. We punch the air. Phew!

If axed, this warrior seeks out the company of the wise and the kind and the funny. No one warrior is an army winning every war. Chiefly, this warrior is fierce.