by DAVID DAVIES
Visitor
after Tom Lomax’s ‘Week of Angels’
Before
I didn’t see what you had written
in the visitor book –
So tiny, like chess pieces – exquisite
Musical spheres – joyful!
Reminded me of cup cakes – like home.
But I did notice you stooped,
the quiet decades comfortable with you
and for a moment you too
vibrated red and green foam
igniting the wall behind you –
all treble clef and bass clef,
all signature, sigil, counting.
Between
Your perfume is electricity, holding me, searing;
your body a lens, pulled back in increments
showing segments of biography: your warm silt face
eroded by the governance of angels.
Beyond
The doors are closing shut
meeting exactly in the middle.
And, outside, cars drift by and a man pushes a bicycle
through the rain;
your volume is a solid block
of everything now and later,
while you wait unprogrammed, counting.
The light steps down to a pinhead, and then
slices over and slices back –
so thin.
Before
It’s taken a life-long moment to scan and plot you,
measure, re-size; now, this is what I am –
my dream canvas.
Now, pigment volume hums red and green
standing quietly in the dust of the space of your imprint,
your vacuum
…its like finding a way back: at home, a winter kitchen,
where my mum sculpts a dress from a sponge cake * –
all signature, sigil, counting.
David Davies, 2011 ©
[* adapted from ‘At Home in the Kitchen’, a poem made from spoken words, by LW/DD, Oct 2011]
