– and with a nod to Emily Dickinson



i

The rattle, the trees, that perfume, and blooms

open up my throat, let the sweetness spill

like sap on dust, on sun-warmed bark. Swaying

seed pods click their small bones to dry applause

on thin, careless wrists. I have no restraint –

no sensible woman eats poppies, yet

red keeps opening its mouth in me. You

roll in rash like unexpected weather,

only you’re a wet socket of white sea

and I’m drawn to you, salt-bright, dangerous,

my pores opening like small honest mouths,

the wilting stretch of my own hot skin says

yes to touch, to the slow slackening light,

the course of a raw storm gorgeously spent.



ii

A sea-eagle arrogant with sky, calls,

owning the height we can only borrow.

The willow with its twisted branches speaks

of age. Will death be my curly corkscrew,

twisting into the dark bottle of me?

May it come like this, as a small exact

instrument understanding of release,

may it lift what I couldn’t pour myself,

may it leave the glass intact. If you must

keep me in this skin, let me be singing,

let me be shook by thunder and let me

rattle the trees again, rattle on in

a little weather of sound. I’ll be found

in these unreal and fabulous hours.



nb Italicised phrases from poems in Dorothy Porter’s ‘Crete’ (Hyland House 1996)