This face on the concrete, cool and rough, this tucked away under dried leaves, this attempt at shelter.
And yes the woodlice come but they don’t mind, they’ve seen me here before. Ants carry on regardless, always did, always will, while I curl up tight.
It’s ok, they nod as they pass by, shifting crumbs and sticks and broken things. But I can’t answer, not right now. I watch the woodlice trundle, legs rippling as if to say, there is movement, there is flow, although I can’t feel it.
And if I keep still long enough, my breathing will settle, will slow and the leaves will tremble on my back, will shudder just enough to show someone that I’m there.
And if I hold on, they might find me and lift me up and know I still belong. They might pluck me from the cracks in the patio and take me home, take me back indoors again.
And I would give my blessings to the woodlice as I leave them. And in someone’s hands I would be whole.
And the front door always sticks a little, heavy to the pull. But down goes the brass handle and I bring it in towards me as you appear. You bob in from the left, all jokes and eyes and jumpers, grey and white Fair Isle. And I’m just there, holding the door handle, looking at you, looking back at me.
And then handshakes and the laughter comes and whispers in the kitchen all rush back. And there is ham salad, of course, tea and apple pie while my little cat fusses around my legs.
Later we are out and I’m in red and black but not the velvet hat, not in those days. I keep it in the drawer instead and the Mason’s Arms appears with the younger me at college, sitting somewhere out of sight. But we walk past her, walk into their lounge and in the ancient arm chairs we drift in and out, you on the death penalty, no doubt and me on Klee and Kandinsky. I flit, topic-hopping from thought to thought like a delirious bee craving pollen. And it winds you up at the start.
Until replete, hours later, we wander down to Brueton Park and through the metal gates to the bird cages where nothing but their perches remain. We crush weeds on the abandoned path, aimless chatting in the stillness, amongst lost feathers and the sense of flight.
And then the bench. There was always the bench and I’m on the left as if to anchor me to the place where I would remain. Then walking back across the dips and hillocks, (with low clouds just like now) you take my hand.
Evening arrives at The Fat Cat Restaurant where we loiter with red wine. And we sit round the back somewhere, hugging white stone walls while their ceramic bowls of chicken fill me up. The spotlights throw up dots from high gloss glaze.
Till later, a little later, kettle boiling in the kitchen with your hand on my hip and then we sit. And so the settee rises, green and soft, with little tufts around the edge, little frayings while the tea cools down.
You in your favourite jumper and me my black waistcoat with thicker hair. You brush it away under the soft certainty, under the tick-tick-tick of my parent’s mantle clock.
If you were in the head of Dolores you would hear the birdsong. She found that morning had turned up again and the trees were full of chattering which surprised her. Yesterday she couldn’t move. Yesterday she was breathing and she knew that to be true because she sat and watched her chest rise and fall, while all that remained of her thoughts lined up in an orderly queue, to present themselves to her.
It had been the hottest day of the year. People had wandered around in shorts, barefoot as though they belonged to the soil while she sat indoors. She poured the southern comfort into a mug and sipped.
Tony would be up soon. He always lay in after work, he always ate steak and mushrooms on pay day and he would tell her she’d make someone a good wife one day – and laugh. He’d roar; head back, broken tooth shining yellow in the evening musk and Dolores would watch his mouth. Mother used to say he had a cruel mouth but she wouldn’t listen to her. Mother didn’t know how good he’d make her feel, he took her out and showed her the sights and she would try food she’d never heard of, long before his frowning, before he started to make her jump.
She knew he was right of course; no one else in the village would take her in, not now. He was the one who plucked her like a rose, who made her his own and he branded her. He would laugh long and wide as he smacked his hand down on the backs of her thighs, and she would wince but she deserved it. She supposed Mother was right after all but she couldn’t think about that now.
Now she had to make the breakfast, now she needed to squeeze the juice from the fresh Jaffa she’d bought at the market, she loved its smell as it pierced her nose, as she rung the life out of it, little bits of pith and flesh floating in her green jug.
And now morning was around her, the birds wanted some plump crumbs. She was surprised at the thickness of the cloud, how the radio crackled and despite the fact she hadn’t eaten for days, she felt no need for food. She felt nothing.
Dolores opened her back door and dropped the phone receiver towards the ground. It caught the edge of the walnut table, chipping its old green plastic like her head when she couldn’t cook steak, when his hands and her hair had entangled and she remembered the sweat of his armpits when she curled small into the floor.
The receiver lay lifeless on the carpet near their door, Dolores slipped out into the garden to feed the birds, they sounded so full of joy. She tilted her head to the side and listened out for the police car.
They would understand.
I sit in your mouth and it’s warm, it’s a round pink place which enfolds me. And how the rub of your tongue soothes my back, how I hold onto your teeth to give me structure. The food comes in, it careens around me, over and into my spaces, the familiar battering and I despise every morsel but i know their names. I sit in the corner of your mouth, I live in this dark moist world and then you mash your teeth together and I feel them crush and smear my form, stretched out fibres of myself, wavering and flipping in the cave where I live, where no one can see me, where my voice fades to dust on spittle, my streaks are a lick of taste inside your mouth.
And you swallow
and I glide down and down, tumbling into your chasm until I climb and climb. I dig in with where my nails used to be, I hold myself up in the flush. I recall myself, I wriggle on the place where my belly used to be, up and up and through to your throat, slipping, craving a ledge until I rest. I sit on your tongue, it is warm, the bristles massage where my limbs used to be.
I am still. I curl up in the corner of your mouth and when you yawn, I can see the world I used to live in, outside, over there, sparkling and remote.
I live in the crevices in your mouth, it’s dark and tight and damp. This is my place now.
Janey L Foster 