Foofy’s experiment

watching: one hundred thousand little legs
scale the wall of the jam jar
squirming onto the dried up twig
and leaves so many
and peas so many
laid by a little hand of nine odd years
to make a caterpillar’s forest.

when will they ball themselves up
into cocoons of waiting?
sighs the fog of breath on the glass between them,
longing to grow wings of her very own.

i watch her watching and wonder
if we too, are caterpillars in a jam jar
or are we, perhaps,
little girls
being watched watching
and longing to grow wings?

Yesterday

Yesterday I waded chin-deep

Into the arms of cloying waves

I wondered how the salinity would taste in my lungs

Its coldness chilling its way around my heart

I went to give myself to the sea

At its shore, I was afraid of dying.

Yesterday I flogged myself blue

Searing every love-bite with a welter

For having loved you in earnest

For letting your persistent hands claim me completely

As they deign not to dirty themselves on my illegitimate flesh anymore.

Yesterday I lay prostrate

Pounding my head on the floor

Cleaving your God from mine

For yours loves you always

And mine has a queer sense of justice.

Yesterday I complained to God about you

I shouted and raved

Ravaged with my sorrow, cut up with my grief

To what avail?

Yesterday I wrote you my suicide note

I wept so quietly I broke into a sweat

I looked into your eyes and found myself nought

Yesterday, I knew you wouldn’t call.

Yesterday I hated you as I wrote this

I send it today because it’s a brand new day

And I love you, as always.

One sultry desert morning

With longing earnest

Pries he, her belly button.

Every time you sulk…

Can’t live up to them –

My bloated self,

Your spewing expectations –

Every day

Another pound or more

Of cakes and ale

Maugham armed you well

“Bitch!”

Whose?

Stuffed.

The tasting organ

Filled up

All over again.