Tag Archives: Waiting

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.

by

Murmuration

And just like that, her head scattered across the fields. Wings battered into wings and feathers drifted down to nestle in the hedgerows underneath.

It was as though no decibels came before her, or after her, as though she, herself, created all disturbance on the air, that her thoughts created sound waves through the universe.

The fields shook under the force of her birds in flight. The sky heaved. She waited.

by

Cumulonimbus

I need to find the smallest of words, seek them out and hold them close. I must be careful though, holding them means I must lift my arms and that seems too hard. So I’ll just think about them instead.

I’ll think about stillness and sleep, that’s all. The rain came back today and with its soaking, it washed away part of me, took my feathers and my frills, drenched my ribbons and wet my bows and I’m bedraggled. If I looked up I’d see them, sodden, lying around me but I won’t open my eyes. I still think about them of course, crave them, remember how it felt to move and jingle and shimmer and shine, but not now.

The rain came back today, it saturated me. There’s almost a breeze but not quite. I’ll just sit still for a while and if I breathe soft and slow, if I look down, no-one will know that I am here.

by

For Safe Keeping

Find her by the canal in her black and white skirt with bells. Find her navigating it all as she jingled, as she smiled.

And there under the August sky, find her leaning up the old Orion, in her black Mary Jane’s and her silk waistcoat.

Later, after chicken salad, no doubt, find her by her candlewick bedspread, chartreuse and tattered but perfect. The only way to end the day.

And in the morning, in the same skirt, find her smile at the bedroom door and make plans to carry her home.

Just find her. Over and over and over again. Always in August, to keep her safe.

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Beyond Glenfield Road

Breathe on me and I will vanish, I will disperse into the air taking my long thick dark brown hair away. And the red fleece of my jacket and the fluff in my pocket will be a memory on the wind.

But you will remain with your calcite core, with your compounds, your glinting similarities to my seashells and my pearls.

And I will shine near the summit looking out to Sabden and Padiham, holding tight to Colne.

While you nestle tucked away, carboniferous in russet, smooth in sandstone in my palm. And I will rub you while I crumble, I will feel the biting wind shriek up my hair.

There with my glacial tilt, my boulder clay which called me. Pick me up and hold me close and I did. I squeezed you in my pocket, I hid you out of sight.

While December chills took my left hand to my ear to keep out the gusts. And the smell of her perfumed cheek and thickness of her winter coat were shutter clicked and frozen to the bone.

We grinned in the cold.

But you will remain with your time smoothed angles, a permanence beyond my emphemeral form. So breathe on me and watch my smile flake to the clouds, watch me scatter in the hills.

And long after the imprint of my trainers has eroded, after my keratin has blown away, you will still feel me. The warmth of my hand embedded in your limestone and your limestone and my secret smile, a fossil of our day.

by

Residue Theorem

Let me feel your bristles, firm against my form. Insistent, purposeful as though they’d never lived a day without motion.

Brush me from my hiding place, my quiet soft decay. Gather me up into your arms and lift me from my chill. Smother me in your hands and then release me.

But first stop. Pause.

Bring me to your face, your nose and mouth and breath me in. Long cool limitless breaths which remember me with calm, with the intricate scents of my form, with my rich bracken twisted broken core.

And inhale me deep, fill your gaps and crevices with my wisdom, my stench of a year gone by.

And then look up. Turn your face into the softened dusk, up to where the night moves in.

And then hurl.

Scatter me to the soil, to the dark places under the shrubs where the robin picks and pecks. And leave me warm, leave me replete with the hours, with the moments which slip away.

Like your hands as you release me.

And I sigh and rest my form, feel my edges crumble where your fingers traced. Feel the gladness of the earth and I will rostle and rustle into place and wait for the cold to take me home. Into my welcoming loam, mulched down soothings till the spring returns.

And it will.

And your fingers will find me once more as I dare to go around again, as I summon my courage and strength to raise my form up from the soil.

And you’ll be waiting.

Standing stoic, through the cutting winter until the light comes, until the hope will lead me back into your hands.

by

Ephemeris

I have been avoiding myself for a while, she thought, but the leaves rushed in and said don’t worry. Watch us dither on the bluster, see how we don’t care.

And she strained her head to the sky, to the spaces where she used to be and watched. They maundered like old thoughts which caught her out in the night, like missed moments, like the regrets which crumbled at her door, twisted and fragile, the haphazard seconds of her life.

But the leaves taught her well. They cried out as they tumbled into her, thither-zither, helter-skelter to her palms. And for those which remained on the trees, she poured her love up to them. They were weary, clumped and battered on the undressed branch. They knew not to resist.

Clouds moved in, cumulus caressed her mind and she didn’t care, not really. Not now. Somehow the day was still gentle.

Listen to the leaves, she said. It’s only spacetime. It’s only 9,192,631,770 periods in the hyperfine transitions of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. One second after another falling to her soil.

There was nothing to worry about after all.

by

Falling Teacup White Robe

Cushion pushing tight into the twists,

the rumbles. Shh, time to sleep

I said before ears came.

The night, perched on the bed edge,

minutes like breaths, squeezing me.

My foreign body. Pulsing.

Weight of silence, an endless open mouth.

Yawning, howling.

Wait in darkness.

Shoe-horned into the car

under my tree, its soft reassurance,

resolve. Battered power

of an injured tiger.

Here, take my body,

it’s yours now.

Pummel me with

your ice cold faceless faces.

Watch me like a cat pawing bird

as I jolt, ricochets up my spine.

I don’t recognise myself

as they trolley me to the new room

with endless breasts which smother me.

Suffocate me in starched white.

I lay still in-between judders

with their walls and wires, lights that beep.

Daylight, hopeful smile on a wheeled-in tray.

Entonox is my friend, it brings me echoes,

fractured words and giggles

as her fingers inch.

Searching for news

but there is none.

Try again tomorrow, they say.

And I search the ceiling for a way out.

I’ve grown used to their window

though I cannot see outside.

One day there’ll be flowers on that table.

Another face on the end of the nth syringe.

I laugh and cry at the same time.

My turquoise bag reminds me of home,

it jars me.

She’ll be back later

and she drops a smile by the door.

Later the ceiling mocks me,

while they swab me clean

and tidy me away to nothing.

I may watch these walls

for the rest of my life.

You know night, that space

where everything sinks?

It takes me, leaves me shaking

in their hard backed chair,

drunk on spasms, they roll me over

strip me bare.

There, they lock the medicine away.

Tight lipped, they make me wait

till morning.

In daylight, pethidine is my best friend.

I call for surgeons,

but their absent hands upset me.

They sip tea on Sundays

while I rock, ridiculous,

a wretched remnant desperate for a gown.

Somewhere a woman wails,

disembodied hollering.

I wonder if she has flowers in her room.

I have no limbs now,

no head to call my own.

My pupa waits, watches the clock

push the hours, breath by breath,

my shadow up their wall.

Till everything bustles, they rush and prod,

watch over me in their Petri dish.

They tut-tut and poke.

Their needles search and pierce,

severing my pain.

I am numbness on plastic sheets,

chrome glints at my feet,

lights wink at me.

They concentrate and congregate,

explore me until teatime.

I give it my best shot.

Then I concede, consent to them,

give up, give out and give in.

I am aware of my breath,

my lungs expanding and contracting

by their green scrubs.

Their scorching lights and tinkering.

Brush the hair out of my eyes.

And where my abdomen used to be

the world opens, lilies start to bloom.

Loud and excitable, like a new heart beat.

Ceilings come and go under the sheer love.

by

Cradled

This, this right here, right now.

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.

by

Boundary Conditions

It’s so still out there, so waiting. That sense of shh, don’t worry, it will come. It’s there in the way the sunlight holds the branches, in the faint call of a hidden bird.

And I pause, breathe, that’s all. And it passes by my window, up to the left with the sparrow wings and he watches me, watching him, watching them all. We slow down, the birds and I, pause to think of sunlight.

And there they are, my creatures in the trees, pecking and singing, ruffling new feathers in this spring. And I wonder do they sense their descendants, the ones I knew, the ones who gave me feathers years ago.

And while they sang outside that window from back there, in that house then, the hem of the dress caught the light as it lay out on the bed, as if to say look at me, look at me, lift me up into your arms. And later, a little later it would be held up as I clambered inside, as I manoeuvred into my new form, like a butterfly losing meconium, drying out its fresh wet wings.

Until its weight draped round my feet and I breathed out. Birds sang unseen as the hem brushed the dust down the wooden staircase and over new mown grass to rest and pause, where cameras winked and moments froze.

Sparrows darted to the neighbour’s tree, head on one side and down the path the hem of the dress shuffled leaves until it was bundled up into the car. It sat quiet, being, folded in upon itself, cushioned on the plush carpet of the foot-well until blackbirds cut the air, overarching the church gate.

And there with the creak of old hinges, with the warmth of a palm, with the click of heels on old stone, the hem of the dress made its way home. Home, on the short path to the archway, home to the hush of the slate and it dragged feathers and fronds as it swayed, as it made its way past pews to the front.

And there it rested for a while, settled in ivory, calm where it belonged. The hem of the dress over champagne silk boots, near to sharp creases in suits and it paused, waited, just to the left of polished shoes.

And then sunlight came back to stroke it, came to throw light at the door. The hem swept and rippled, caught the coloured flecks, scattered rainbows all around, then hands scooped it back up into soft contours in the car.

Trees moved above it unseen, voices chattered and laughed while it lay crumpled up and then the grass came back, daffodils nodded and bobbed as it moved around. Photons bounced up from the duck pond, white spots and sparkles, before it coated steps and carpet-brushed itself along.

And it swooned, the hem of the dress with the tiny remnants from the day and it danced over polished floors, glided as though it would always flow, would always sway, as though in its moment there was release.

And later it lay, much later it was still, smoothed out again and silent on the protective bag at the bedside, soon to be tucked far away.

And now hydrogen coalesces into helium, firing light and heat, like it did, like it does. How reassuring as it warms up the blackbird’s wings, as it listens to the soil.

And in a different wardrobe now the hem of the the dress sleeps its sleep, cradled and swaddled in plastic, over unused things and bits and bobs. But in its weft and weave it holds the moments when it danced, when it was free, when it could shimmer and it was home.