Quayside
Abdullah, fifteen, Pashtun
who'd have an AK47
ink-hammered the length of his forearm
if it wasn't haram
is trying to get online.
He sits in the gutter, knees to chin.
A Greek Orthodox priest passes by on the other side.
He sits in the gutter, knees to chin.
A tourist in a carcrash bikini passes by on the other side.
For a signal he grips his phone against the sky.
On it are photos of his parents that barbecue
in warm fields of grasses and red poppies and blue flax last June,
an address in Nottingham.
What's that trickling down his arm? Sweat? Goatsmilk? Seawater?
Yes, Driver. I'll do that thing for you.
Yes, Driver. I'll stay alive.
On the quayside, as he waits for the ferry to Piraeus, he thinks:
this phone this phone is all I own.
& my eyes
& my name
though his eyes - all the long, dark days & long, dark nights
in the lorries from Kabul, & then the boat -
have become like stones
though his name - all the long, dark days & long dark nights
in the lorries from Kabul, & then the boat -
breaks into breadcrumbs in his throat.
('Quayside' was published in the anthology In Transit: Poems Of Travel, edited by Sarah Jackson and Tim Youngs)
Pine
Once, at dusk, from a summer train
I saw a burning Ford Capri
at the edge of a peach fuzzed cornfield
two boys
running away from it
laughing.
In winter I saw that same car in a costume of snow
sinking
as if with the joy's weight.
I found out this: there's no such thing as sin.
Take last night, here in Festalemps:
a white hair of lightning clove a pine
clean in two.
I held the man I'd stolen, as he held me. Equal thunder. Equal thievery.
We were each other's hot money.
We were each other's. In wads.
Then we smelt black smouldering. Flesh.
Not us.
The pine.
This morning we walked to where it had split & burnt.
Ants were making chains of themselves
sneaking off
with little lamps of resin.
Since then it's been little lamps of resin
walking out of his nostrils,
little lamps of resin
walking out of his ears & lips,
little lamps of resin
walking out of every hole
in his lit body.
'Pine' won the Stonewood Prize in the Aurora Writing Competition, April 2016
Abdullah, fifteen, Pashtun
who'd have an AK47
ink-hammered the length of his forearm
if it wasn't haram
is trying to get online.
He sits in the gutter, knees to chin.
A Greek Orthodox priest passes by on the other side.
He sits in the gutter, knees to chin.
A tourist in a carcrash bikini passes by on the other side.
For a signal he grips his phone against the sky.
On it are photos of his parents that barbecue
in warm fields of grasses and red poppies and blue flax last June,
an address in Nottingham.
What's that trickling down his arm? Sweat? Goatsmilk? Seawater?
Yes, Driver. I'll do that thing for you.
Yes, Driver. I'll stay alive.
On the quayside, as he waits for the ferry to Piraeus, he thinks:
this phone this phone is all I own.
& my eyes
& my name
though his eyes - all the long, dark days & long, dark nights
in the lorries from Kabul, & then the boat -
have become like stones
though his name - all the long, dark days & long dark nights
in the lorries from Kabul, & then the boat -
breaks into breadcrumbs in his throat.
('Quayside' was published in the anthology In Transit: Poems Of Travel, edited by Sarah Jackson and Tim Youngs)
Pine
Once, at dusk, from a summer train
I saw a burning Ford Capri
at the edge of a peach fuzzed cornfield
two boys
running away from it
laughing.
In winter I saw that same car in a costume of snow
sinking
as if with the joy's weight.
I found out this: there's no such thing as sin.
Take last night, here in Festalemps:
a white hair of lightning clove a pine
clean in two.
I held the man I'd stolen, as he held me. Equal thunder. Equal thievery.
We were each other's hot money.
We were each other's. In wads.
Then we smelt black smouldering. Flesh.
Not us.
The pine.
This morning we walked to where it had split & burnt.
Ants were making chains of themselves
sneaking off
with little lamps of resin.
Since then it's been little lamps of resin
walking out of his nostrils,
little lamps of resin
walking out of his ears & lips,
little lamps of resin
walking out of every hole
in his lit body.
'Pine' won the Stonewood Prize in the Aurora Writing Competition, April 2016
