in association with
It’s winter 1988. The first time I’m home alone
and scared of answering the phone. The model Spitfire
is still drying, its badly set undercarriage
doing the sideways splits. Outside the window, a snowy monument
- night, the lady of both tides. The silence
between rings is unbearable.
Twenty years on, I’m still scared of answering
the phone. Before me – an iron road, jaws
snapping, the whisper of grit, the squeal of sprockets,
waves of nausea. And love like overweight baggage,
like a vial of glue or green grease. Write it down:
inclined plane. Ten years earlier: unfortunate
drive up a ramp, a tiny skateboard wheel loose and the fall.
What an arena, dreams of fresh leaves on snow,
perfect surfaces of abandoned kites.
And also faith in the immortality of flesh and sudden silence
between rings. Diagnosis: cracked ankle
joint. Diagnosis: the hourglass smashed.
