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.