Poetry work by Josephine Devereux
Closure
6 am start
He rests on the chair, unmoving
Do you want coffee? I call
No response
He’s sticking to this silence gig.
7.30 am we’re in the car
Bags in the trunk
He didn’t help
Not odd though, for
He never did.
Leaning over to the passenger’s seat
I buckle him in.
How about the weather?
I say
How about it.
We stop at midday for lunch
I go to get the sandwiches
Rubbing a palm over my jawline
Coarse sandpaper stubble
Should’ve shaved,
But what’s the point really.
It’s almost dark when we get there
It’s quite cold
I remark, his grey pallor mirroring the clouds
And we walk over the dunes.
I can feel salt on my face
It’s not the sea though
I’d hoped for better weather,
But you never really liked the
Sun, anyhow.
So I walk with you
Into the sea
I can feel the coldness lapping
But not properly
My vision blurred,
I take off your lid
Then hold you up into the wind
And release us both.
A different kind of talking
My older sister has a blank face.
I think she’s owned one for as long as I’ve breathed.
Some doctors told our Mother she doesn’t know how to feel them- emotions- but he fibbed.
One night I was really angry at her because she’d broken my best pen. I was yelling, getting into it.
But as my voice rose so did she, and she took out her Cello.
The moment her bow touched the strings, words started swirling into my ears. My sister was static, alive, her body moving into the notes. Eventually I fell asleep, just listening. When I woke, I felt all fluttery and peaceful.
Everyone else got it wrong. My older sister has emotion, so much emotion I’m afraid she’ll burst.
Maybe that’s why she has a blank face.
Dilution
On the Sunday they arrived
Perched atop pearl-white boats
Claiming that they had found ‘new lands’,
oozing Colour.
We thought they might join us
But not a word escaped their chalky white lips.
They built White houses surrounded by fences- tiny blotches of White staining our fields.
We paid little heed.
Slowly Colour began to ebb out, from trees, from animals
Swallowed up by concrete floors,
Our rich hues fading, lightening.
On the last day we were forced to watch as our children started building White fences
Leaving us to wallow
In dwindling puddles
Of Colour.
Rhythms
The leaky tap has finally bested the clock
As the washing line points to the shore
Lighting up a sandy trail to golden grains.
Poised on branches, I observe
As brown turns green, and green fades away
Gulped by progress.
