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Two poems Poetry |
Donna
Her younger brother stole across the river
to boost beer-kegs from the Royal Hotel
and float them back across the river.
In accordance with all classical myth,
he hadn’t bargained on the current.
The weirgate dredged him, dead.
Music was heaven to Donna, heaven
overheard on earth, sifting down from
the shifting spheres or an open window,
the hi-hat moon. Heaven, with the heat
of evening, and her singing coming down
the stairs. Billie or Nina or Dinah.
Adeline
The smallest one among them
tasted air and named it breath.
The others lopped her silver hair
with garden shears - she wept
all through the second hymn
and then they hid her duffel coat
and so she ran the two streets home
to where they said they couldn’t see her,
no. Her brother’s glasses trapped the sun
and made his eyes alive with fire.
Each colour had a different flavour.
She ran the taps to free the rivers,
begged her eldest sister let her
count the galaxy of freckles.
No one ever missed her
with their spit or snowballs,
open hand or closed. She stayed
so still, she was so good,
they laid her body on the doorstep
like a sandbag for the flood.