Mending You are sitting close to the light, intent on thread and needle and the lining of my good coat, trailing like a slipped wing. Outside, snow has started falling again. You taught me to sew. Strange craft for a husband perhaps, and you learned it young. Frowning, you deftly unpick what I had tacked …
NaPoWriMo 09 – day 27
Jar The tomatoes are struggling. Early frosts have made the quest for ripeness instead a hard scrabble for autumn survival. Leaves yellow and the veins stand out – green tributaries of a leaking river-system. We stroke their knobby stems and press our lips to the fruit to coax a little more colour into their cheeks. A week more, and we will harvest …
NaPoWriMo 09 – day 26
The Beautiful Boys of Amsterdam We made love in a glass-walled bedroom. Opening the curtains brought the city to our table, and we drank it in. It was high summer, and the beautiful boys of Amsterdam were everywhere, shirtless and smiling. Who would not bloom there? Feeling like teenagers, we strolled along the canal into …
NaPoWriMo 09 – day 25
How to Remember Build yourself a soldier. More than one. Take sticks, stones, mud – all of these are traditional materials. Use them. Also paper, blood, children, trees, fertile fields, peaceful towns – whatever gets the job done. Call for patriots. For nationalists. For right-minded citizens. All manner of materials – you're in the army …
NaPoWriMo 09 – day 24
Urbania Walking through the city, I heard a rooster, crowing from the gatepost of a house hidden from the road; waves slipping down from dark rocks; the crunch of gravel under booted feet behind me, even though I was alone, and unshod; an auctioneer's patter from a magpie; a mother calling to a lost pet, here …
