SWEET

The day she went
out of our lives

I offered her a sweet.

'Thanks love, I'll eat it
later on the bus.'

She snaps it shut in her little red purse.

I still feel my hand  letting go of her hand
see for the last time her never-again-seen face.

Only the little red purse returns
out of its mouth…Death laughs

in blood besprinkled glass
some small change…the never eaten sweet.

For years it lives behind the wind-up clock
in my mother's bedroom

scaring me each time I have to pass
and it sees me     and laughs.

My little brother not even born then when...
jumps up & down playing alone

all by himself
in a world of his own.

He is both good guy & bad guy
falling down dead on the bed

as a quick spat out shot
ricochets & agggh...gits him!

Even by 7
killing yourself is a tiring business.

He stops. Rests.

...rummages around among
my mother's artifacts.

His little inquiring mind
snaps open the little red purse.

Death laughs(but he not knowing)  
is immune to it.

He sees the white wrapped death sweet
almost glowing against the red.

He sees it...eats it.

The Past has been
eaten by the Present.

Unaware of what he has done
(Death defeated)  

he flings himself on the bed once again
pretending he is dead

sunlight streams through the glass
holds him gently in its hand

this the living child
Death dead at last.



This is where all my writing starts from...at the same time that Death gave me a voice...it tore my tongue out. The poetry finally let me speak.

I keep coming back to this one moment and writing different poems from different angles and even a short story!  It haunts me.


GLASS

only
her red purse
returns

Inside it a sweet
some small change &
blood besprinkled glass.

it alone
survives
the crash

Death is only
a newspaper headline.
still...this grief

I weep tears
that don't show up
on my face

I push my fingers
deep in the purse
cut my fingertips to bits

the held glass
(all I have of you)
scarring my face

blind
to the pain
blind to the pain

the old blood
and the new mingles
and once more

if only for a second
we are together
for as long as the pain lasts.


SWEET

See the purse. Little red purse. Little red purse with golden clasp. Snap it shut. See June open the purse. Open the purse June. Snaps shut. Sweet. How sweet? Surrounded by toffee the soft chocolate waits to be bitten into.

'Not now love, I'll have it later.'

The bus is late. We all wait. In school we chanted 'Here comes the bus...here comes the bus...will there be room for all of us? ' We all wait. The bus is late. She laughs with her friend. See June laugh. Laugh June laugh. Her hair eclipses her eyes. Her eyes vanish in her laughter. She had given me money to buy sweets as we wait for the late bus. She is totally absorbed in the words her friend is mouthing.

I can only see her talk. I can't seem to hear her anymore. Memory erases itself. The only sound is silence. I am offering her a sweet. She takes it absentmindedly and smiles: 'Not now love, I'll have it later.' She clicks open her little red purse. The white sweet curls up and sleeps.

The bus puffs and pants. It creeps and crawls up the hill. Junie's laughter freezes into slow motion. Laughter spills like water. Splashes me. I am totally absorbed in her being totally absorbed with the laughter. The world is only 'now.' Now is all there is. The bus takes a millennium to arrive at where we are. It has to crawl from the world of time into our world of no time. Yet in no time at all the bus is no longer there. It is a dot in the distance - a curtain of trees eclipsing it as it turns a bend. Gone.

I am letting go of her hand. My hand is waving goodbye. Her hand is waving goodbye. There is only the dance of hands. The language of gesture. Her face floats and bobs away from me forever. I never see her again. Memory starts to erode reality. I only remember that I forget.

The water splashes all over me. I am washing myself is the sink. The knock on the door freezes the water... the moment... and who I am. When the strange man leaves my world...my world no longer exists. The bus crashes. See the bus crash. Crash bus crash. Look Donall look!

'Here comes the bus...here comes the bus! '

Bric-a-brac floats back. The little red purse returns. It is snapped shut. Its innocence survives death. Its casual simplicity is intact. All facts are kept from the purse. All is contained in its redness. For years it lays unnoticed...unopened. It lives in the space behind the clock that tolls the time. The hours resonate as they pass. The purse has transformed itself into clutter. It is only another item that fills up space. It has no function other that to have no function. It is opened casually and by sheer chance.

Death spills out. Splashes me all over. Little bits of glass flecked with blood glint in the new light of an other 'now.' A different 'now.' I cut myself shutting it. Fresh blood. The white sweet still lies asleep curled up into it self. It's whiteness shocking against the sheer redness.

Death is a seven year old uneaten sweet. Death glints ready to cut again. For years it inhabits yet another existence...the existence of never opening again. It has a power all of its own. I cut across a room rather than confront it. Frantically looking for something or other I suddenly confront it. It confounds me and wounds me with its presence.

My little brother enacts a film he has recently seen. He plays all the parts. Suddenly, he the good guy, is shot by the bad guy who is also himself. He clutches his heart in disbelief...stammers in a bad Bogie voice: 'Ya got me...kid! ' He grabs the purse in order to signify his deathly wound. He holds it to his heart where it apparently bleeds through his fingertips. This purse means Death. I leave him dying over my mother's bed.

Although he is now dead his curiosity gets the better of him. He is hungry and teatime is a far away place. The purse opens with a slight gasp from its golden clasp. The white sweet reveals itself - a deadly pearl held in red. Somewhere in time a bus is crashing. Hands are waving goodbye. June is laughing. She clicks her purse shut. The bus has not appeared as yet- the bus has just come into view. There is only now...this moment. Timeless.

'Not now love...'

My little brother sees it.

It is a Cadbury's Chocolate Éclair.

There is only one sweet.

There is only one of him.

There is only one thing to do.

He eats it.