Monthly Archives: April 2024

by

Argent

Sometimes it’s the smell of lilies and the look of them boxed on her kitchen floor. Sometimes it’s the fluster of silk on her wooden stairs, how people busy themselves around her as she sits.

Now and again it’s the smell of nail varnish, sharp and clean, almost fruity, cutting through her day. Quite often it’s the thought of her mug of tea to her right, going cold as women fuss. One kneels down and laces her boots while the other stands behind her and sticks clips into her hair.

She notes how the moments jump haphazard, back and forth. The barefoot giggling, the squealing down the phone line, the faces waiting as she rustles down the stairs and then the door.

Sometimes it’s the front door open wide, the look of April grass, sap-full of promise in the sunlight but always it’s the crisp smell of taffeta, the feel of it, the weight of it, the look of it around her form. And then the leaving.

Most times it’s the leaving and her ivory heels on the mat in the foot-well of the car. And everyone who wakes up on that morning, who passes them as they drive by, will notice her, will smile and wave and she will know that decades later, that she’ll recall their faces even though they’ll have forgotten her.

And then the stone path comes into view, her clipping and shuffling into the heavy hush, dust particles hanging in the air like prayers. And most times, in fact all of the time, it’s the haze of photons, marking seconds, as if to say they’re waiting, just like he was. Waiting as she smiles towards him, knowing. And she moves through in slow-mo silence to his side.

Again and again and again. With her shield of flowers.

Sometimes later, it’s the metal sound of the hotel fire escape, as they sneak their way back in, when the guests have waved them off, when the guests think they have gone. High heels and alcohol, such a potent combination but they still make it to their room. 

And then the cathedral looms up out of sequence, permanent against drunk daffodils. She tilts, she swirls against the ancient backdrop, arms outstretched with wings of chiffon, secure against the stone, pearlescent in the rays. 

In the evening yards of taffeta bunch up to make a bustle and she inhabits it as though it’s intrinsic to her form. Music frays, lights and faces twirl, handshakes, hugs and tiredness falls.

And it flips back to the waiting and then the moving out towards. Always. Moving forwards, always holding flowers, a beacon to light the way.

The waiting there, this waiting here with purpose, with belief and certainty. And this is how it was, how it is.

How it will be.

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Some Kind of Angel

The woman’s dress, it almost brushed the floor.

The cold stone in the cathedral and all I could see was the fabric to my left as she sat there. The golden swirls, maybe paisley, maybe African, I’ll never know. 

And to the right of her ochre and viridian I sat quiet and tried to regain myself. 

And she helped us when her language wasn’t ours, when our battered tourist phrase book didn’t work.

And I wonder if she ever thought of me years later, of  the young woman who she helped, taken ill in the arms of Our Lady and did she remember the warm blanket of her words. 

I did.

She sat with me in silence until the taxi came and in broken English, as we left, she blessed us with healthy children. And I was grateful for her words, her care, the sanctuary of her presence. And a year later in the healthiest of pregnancies, in my blooming, I was so thankful for her prayer. 

With thanks to the woman whose face I never saw, who came to my rescue, who helped us when we needed it and I wonder what she’s doing now and I send her back a prayer.  

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Glittering (Underland #4)

And it makes me wonder what I’d say, if I could say all the things in my head, if I could give you all the images and moments, all the feelings, thoughts and words.

And if I could shape them, if I could form them out of the mist rolling in by your door, would you hold them, would you take them in your arms and keep them close?

I move as if unhindered by time, the mist rolls in, softening me, droplets of water around my words. And beyond the bustle, in the place that only we know, there is calm.

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Stepping Stone

You know how this goes. We start with the bed sheets, I’d call them plum, or maybe more of a claret, too dark for my liking either way.

Tiny windows framing fields, an old phone box that works. White cotton blouse with pintucks, sunhat with a pale blue ribbon, of course 

Park up by the toilets opposite Rick Stein’s. Every shop with large buckets of netted shells, so many little brittle housings for creatures long since gone. I study them, imagine who lived inside. 

The sun tears through me.

Sunday comes, leaves bike tracks on the Camel trail, not mine though. I leave a trail through the cottage and look from windows. I’m too good at that.

Monday blurs to Tuesday. Tuesday with the thump of sand beneath my trainers, parka flapping, hair wild. Blustered running with my arms wide.

The sedimentary rocks still glinting in the photons like they did, like they do, like they will long after the atoms of keratin in my hair have gone back into the atmosphere.

The bin men are a day late but it’ll still be light when I manoeuvre the residue of the week down the path.

The crows are loud today, arguing over something. The sunlight edges towards the piece of rock on my windowsill, it’ll warm it up later. Hydrogen and helium just doing their thing, a bit like me.