Buy it from Bookshop.org and support local booksellers
This collection is incredibly honest and open about the complexities of grief – it is not sugar coating anything, it speaks with a tenderness – a living with the reality of situations, even when they are far from perfect. It is an exemplar of the kind of open hearted / broken hearted approach to life (and death) that we found in Andrew Flewitt’s Do You Believe in Life After Loss.
Two of the poems…
Shauny Bubble
I clock you in Nivea pink lather
as I soup your granddaughter’s little limbs
like you scrubbed mine when I was muddy knees
I clock you in seafoam on Weybourne beach
strolls we never did together I clock
you rise in lager pints we never shared
I clock you erupt in boiling water
as I stir two a.m. tea in your Best
Dad mug I clock you trapped in a spirit
level still reminding me I’m not straight
I never asked you why Shauny Bubble
was you life-long nickname maybe Bubble
was your first word your first teddy maybe
everybody knew you’d float briefly burst
James
age six James means Bond cars guns but I am
silver Space Girls Heelies pink nails I say
my name already knowing it’s a punch
line I’m sixteen my father is boiling
a kettle by closed window when I tell
him I’m gay he turns his back on me
as if I am the past I’m twenty-six
in the living room drunk on New Year’s Dad
queries if I’m dating someone my heart
full hot kettle I grill if he recalls
turning his back on me and then he spills
he had a brother named James who was bi
in eighties Manchester my father was
the only man James told before he took
his life James comes from Hebrew name Jacob
which means to supplant to take the place of
No comments:
Post a Comment