February 2013

The clear orange bottle was empty. 
It had been empty a day.
It suddenly seemed so costly
and uncalled for anyway.
 
Two years had passed. They had passed
more or less the way years should.
Maybe he’d changed. Or maybe
the doctors had misunderstood.
 
It was...

As a boy he had trouble speaking,
past three before a real word preened
from his lips. And for the longest time,
malaprops haunted him. His older sister
did what she could to train the bitten seal
of   his brain to twirl the red ball...

What is mysterious about loss,
flush of arm pulled from a wilted sleeve,

summer’s urine-tang in autumn leaves?
Let   John Keats light another fag.

Or Brontë refuse the doctor
on her black sateen settee.

For whatever part of   you
may be taken away, you said,

is...