Hey, Crow

‘Hey, Crow,’
I say in my mind
and he flips up into the air
just before a truck
rounds the bend, huge
on the early morning road.

He is all points: beak,
opening wing-tips, tail
and splayed claws
on dangling legs;
jagged, ragged black
lifting calm and quick.

Then we are past
and the mist
thickens down the valley,
swathes of smoky cloud
filling all hollows except
the bright path we travel.

‘What’s all this light?’ I ask,
‘Look how the sun shines!’
The fog around us towers,
spills up surrounding hills.
Between, our sky is a channel
radiant blue. From high,
one barking laugh.


Published in OCHO #24  (the poets-on-twitter edition – after a few years, no longer available to read in issuu, sadly, but can be bought as a book: see my right side-bar)

In May 2016, linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #304

Skinny

At last I begin to see
what people have told me
all my life: I have
unusually fine skin
and it’s beautiful.

‘Like a baby,’ said Istiarini
that woman in Bali who,
in love with my husband Bill,
gave me a facial to impress him
and perhaps to placate me. Not
that either was necessary; she
had already won him (briefly).

And Graeme, my lover
in my thirties, said it:
‘I’ve always thought
you have a beautiful skin.’
Which surprised me, I never
viewed it as an asset.

Kellie now, who became
wife to my son David, hers
is beautiful skin – creamy
against the dark
sheen of her hair and
those great big, luminous eyes.
It looks as if the texture
is almost waxy, but
I suppose it must be soft.
Unblemished skin.

Not like mine
covered in tiny freckles
and the insect bites
that turn into welts
and then scabs.
All the stinging insects
love my sweet blood,
sucking it easily through
my very fine skin.

And pale too, always
embarrassing in this land
of suntanned bodies. I
burn, which is painful
and dangerous, therefore I stay
chalk-white for years;
how eccentric.

So I have always thought,
yet today I notice
my breasts are like snow
as I look down on them,
snowy mounds
that I stroke very gently
with fingertips,
not to bruise or redden
their fine, impossibly fine
skin, even finer than
close-woven lawn
or than silk, though not
silk-slippery, just
perfectly smooth.

Not hard at all but not
unduly soft, more plump
as when I pat my face
my cheeks are too:
as if underneath the skin
is firm, fleshy fruit
only just ripened, that gives
to the touch, then bounces
back into place, into shape,
with the spring of youth.
Amazing!

What fruit?
Apples are firm
but not so giving.
A pear on the other hand
is not resilient, would squash.
Perhaps a peach? Too juicy.
An apricot or a plum?
Apricot, yes,
for the flesh – but not even
the skin of a soft apricot
is so fine as my skin
or so smooth. Not even
the skin of a plum.