Lucky Me (4 page)

comical wire-knot knees bobbing,

(looking more like eyes caught

in a beam than proper knees),

but somehow connected to the

purposeful scurry of her weight.

It was obvious that she was after

easy bait, (she was arguably unable

to compete for the live stuff), but

what if her legs should break!

What then! As a doctor was it

not my purpose to warn her?

So I shouted above the brittle crack

of the slapping waves: “Stick to the water

Gull and use your flipper webs. You have

no legs to speak of, not really,

and,” (with some sarcasm),

“you could of course still fly.”

There was pause while she turned

with a retinal flash, and her eyes

(they gave me the creeps to tell you

the truth) went black, black as beads.

“My wings will snap before my legs,

and my feet are made of salt.

Do you,” (with some sarcasm),

“still want me to try, or would you

rather I default? ”

She left me with my own thin and

precarious legs gripping the shifting strand,

trying to tease out the meaning of her reprimand,

to decipher what is was about,

to determine whether I belonged at

sea, in air or on land.

I went to sing

for her the hymn of a thousand

boys, the school hymn; to sing,

sing like a compulsory pilgrim

in sweet bellow, borrowing octaves.

He went to bring

for them smoke, smoke-scented

flowers, catholic hope; to bring

for them wafers, wafers and blood, (sapid

blood) to nourish new graves.

I went to wring

from her milk, milk and love

hands, live hair; to wring

from her living, living; but he suckles contented

his aunt, and he waves, and he waves.

If you want a lion to lose his pride

feed him sugar, (soak it in blood if you like

or spike it with fear), then watch from the side

line while crystal sweet poison mingles

and gels with his spit.

Watch from afar if you will, but

peering breath-close is preferred, preferred

to observe Iago at work, leaching, leaching a gap

in his tooth, seeping, seeping into his rage

till his women are split;

then witness your abscess make war, civil

war. Your lion will lose most of his mane of

course, like they all do, live off lame rabbit, and swivel

to fend off sharp giggles from the hideous

cubs that he bit.

Your assessment may be that it's cruel,

this process. You might even see it as a repetitive, diabolical

joke, a tempt-fork tipped with ridicule

that simply goes too far; but you'll never still the audience

nor break the lion habit.

She lay, obediently, soon smoke, like clay.

A remnant for remembrance, supine

and heat-still with drawn, wax

eyes, drawn lovingly to simulate

pared death, a dormancy, mere interval.

We entered, all entered into compensatory

pretence, making her more comfortable

by tucking in her quilt, each

giving up his seat, each hushed and

reverent, to sanitate her peace,

feeding sparrows her final bread,

while trolley-clank leant normalcy to grief.

The retina is Mars when seen

An hour after atropine,

A concave Mars, an orange-red

Disc suspended in dendrites that thread

And nourish and mock the optical illusion

Of
⁶
Lowell's ‘canals'.

And when the retinal plate

is sick with flame haemorrhages and exudates,

Mars is closer still. Sugar, smoke

And pressure may be at fault, but they stoke

A universal and terrible confusion

That tightens the bowels.

⁶
The Astronomer, not the poet.