Tender
I’ll no longer be here to remember this view from my window — the wall, its peeling beige paint, the clothesline, the diseased rose plant still growing up the far corner. Snowdrops melt away, the primroses. Report back.
There’ll be no one left to remember you, you know. In the end, none of this will signify. There’s your answer. Ambient, speculative. Full dress. My father was hearing, my uncle listening.
Where my uncle emerged from the snicket, Ilford blacks & whites. You never knew. Whatever happened to the gas board van man & the inquest papers? What is the cause of death?
Impossible to see the aircraft against the sun. Just it’s noise. The moth burst open, burnt up. Roundel on a sea-grey background, floating. The air-sea rescue boats tied up in the harbour, moored beside coastal patrol, bow to stern.
Information like little sweeties, Venus bronze on her marble base, elements of a planet, a plan, a place, a place its horizon, momentary, that green balancing there, on the line, the plane disappears, its perspective, golden section. Pisces.
What will the world give today? Head to tail. Jupiter & Saturn a speck below the horizon. Like dazzle ships. If you’re going to find it there, find them, 21st December their golden ratio, your opportunity, a sharp light, golden ratio golden.
It’s all about hearing it, the knock of the language, tongue scared. Tugs & tenders. Drawn up amidships, the fuselage still afloat. Keep the invaders out, & refrain. The migrants & refugees. On the ground. Out, out, out.
Time the other side, with father farther out. & uncle. The amber indicators, hazard warning. Uncle in his squadron leader blue-greys. What are we fighting for? So, you never need to. Poland.
The brick-walled ginnel running up behind connecting all the houses, the confined space like a safety catch. The sound of boots, echoey. & down to the sea, sand-coloured walls, the beach of chalk cobs & flinty pebbles.
Sand or mica. Misdiagnosis. & the rush out into the fresh air.
That the passage sings back, returns the song.
March 2021
Simon Smith is a poet and teaches at the University of Kent.