Desk
The way he roughly drilled
the inch thick support-battens,
measured up quickly,
not planing the rough-cut ends
or sanding the sharp shards
round the drill-holes,
then drove thick screws
through them into veneered
sides of the big-mirrored dressing table
and matching heavy chest-of-drawers,
wedding gifts to them
that had stood solid till
that morning, side by side
at the end of their double bed,
and now lost, outsize,
in my small room,
to-be-held-apart-from-each-other
as he drove more, thick-whorled screws
now strongly downward
into the batten-wood
through the thick panel
he’d cut from an engine
packing case at work,
then slopped thin varnish on,
too matte against the fake
golden-brown wood-rings of
the furniture’s sheened veneer,
a make-do crude desk
with rickety kitchen chair
where I was to do my work.
The blue rod
It stood for weeks, propped in a garage-corner,
passed on by a friend who didn’t want it.
Then, one evening I’d fretted in bed,
pleaded with them to let me spend pocket
money to buy it weights, hook, and float,
so we could go fishing Dad’s first weekend
off work. And we did set out along
Clacton pier, sea-water glittering
beneath its thick planks. We paid the day-rights
to fish, then balanced the rod against the rail
to tie on the float, lead weights, and hook
baited with worms from the angler’s store.
With dreams of a free fish dinner, Mum’s praise,
he held my hands round the rod, helped me make
the first cast. Only for the reeling line
suddenly to catch, and float, hook, weights
to shoot onwards, as the line broke at
a minute knot. Gear lost, day-rights fee
non-returnable, our heads-hung walk
carried the useless blue rod home.
Medusas
The swim was a muse, a steady strong pace;
locked-in thoughts, reflections across water,
till one stroke raised a triple-Medusa-
bracelet of pain, brown foliage tentacle
snaked up the forearm, thousand-needle jag
bringing the horizon crashing inwards,
whip-welts stone-sore down to this hand writing,
and, on the next swim, the ache of lurid
feeler-marks at their return to the sea.
Handing back the key
By the time you got the key to that door
back to me, the door itself had vanished,
together with the keyhole, hinges, wall –
all of it chucked away, to clear the space
for the humming new glass-walled offices.
Now I shift on that brass key from jacket
to jacket, and grasp hold of it entering
empty rooms or walking over bridges,
in case I ever need it to open
some lock in the air, and step across.