this child goes to sleep with a silver dollar on her eyes
the tv thumping inside her breast
this child stirs turns folds her lips inside a smile
shivers into the wind in her childlike dreams
she opens her feet like poppets opening and closing
her small teeth mice running up
and down staircases. her hands anemones
unpicking oceans her hair the unchained
music that a goat sings to his lover the moon
this child does not sleep
this child does not moan
this child is black and bruised
this child has no home
this child is an orphan
this child is a sapling in winter
this child dreams of her future
this child lies on the hard nails of his past
this child is a waterfall of sadness
this one a great grey mare waiting to jump
imaginary fences
this one a sailor this a soldier
this a priest this an imam
this rollercoaster ride is the child whose key holds no turning
until he unlocks the window of his juvenile morning.
unrolled skin lay in gutters, pools of milk
stained clothes, coffee cups, teeth
& old men grinning.
after the flood rolled by like carnival day
it left tears and lemon groves, cloth caps
shoes, reading glasses a& horsehair pillows
the flood left town today blowing its own trumpet
i saw a juggler lying in the mud
a crazy smile on his face
still holding tight to his clubs.
he mopped silt from his mouth closed
his eyes, placed two coins on their lids for luck
& his fare to the next world. the moon yawned
showed broken promises. after the flood
many people became familiar with carpentry.
i taste you
in the broadleaved woodland
i taste you
in the back of the plastic wind
in the underside of a blizzard
on top of a mountain
by a morning stream
in the arms of the lord
on a buzz saw in a train
on its way to jamaica
in a red village on a grey wall
in the limbs of moss on a bare tree trunk
inside a coconut shell on a snail's silver trail
in the clatter of small streams.
when i unpick myself from a dream.
i taste you in the sound of zeus
muttering to himself in oakleaves
on a ferry crossing from ireland to llandudno
when a mother croons to her firstborn
or a soldier comes across himself
walking away from minefields into the dawn
at daybreak in a rock pool when a crab
peeks out at me from under a frown.
the old man who gave me a sweet
on the bus coming home from school.
you on a branch somewhere
whistling johnny b. good.
i see you in the tents of arabs
spread across a desert at midnight
i see you in the ponies that gallop
alongside trains in cowboy movies.
i want to be that pinto pony. i want to be
that ridden smile. i want to be the last mile you climb
before reaching out your soul, a gift to heaven
i want to be your whispered prayer at mass.
blessed be the ones who don't forget
blessed be the spider on the wall
blessed be the candle to st. theresa
blessed be the mother-of-pearl in your soul.
blessed be the glory to god in the low
the middle and the high
blessed be the hair on my lover's head
her eyes his teeth her nipples his grin
her ridiculous knees his wooden eyebrows
her chanting french songs to kissing gates
his running along the ledge of a stoneworld
before leaping like a goat into morning.
blessed be the taste in my lover's mouth
his tongue on the roof of mine.
blessed be the taste of our shadows.
UK Poet Geraldine Green is Cumbrian-born with Irish roots. Her first collection, The Skin was published in February 2003. Her second collection, Passio, was published in April 2006, both by Flarestack.Her work has appeared magazines and anthologies in the US, Italy and the UK.where she has read widely.
She runs Creative Writing workshops and is an Associate Editor of Poetry Bay www.poetrybay.com and Co-editor (UK) of