Rothenburg's black horse 

my white slate mind 

meets

two dappled greys

four beat gait

in the street

 challenged

My life will now again turn suddenly into something else.

Luca

 It's the deep night scurry,

the serpentine course round and through rooms

that admits you're here. 

 

Mice on the screen, boxes, and ribbons.

The sound of a small fountain.

 

Hair, and air purifiers.

It's possible to be allergic to love.

 

 

 

 

 

Félicette

Cat like you

kidnapped from the streets,

meets space.

Sent into orbit, where

someone measured your

slowing heart 

and

returning to earth,

cut you apart.

 

Outside my window

a stone wall

plants

today sun

and lutes

endurance

Endurance found

remarkably intact 

dead dogs

a cat

Mrs. Chippy

it's a bit nippy

where you are

under  the ice

drink tea

don't think

one man can

threatens home

I comb the contract for a hidden clause

 

blackmail three say

I lie awake al night -

Where will I put my washing machine?

 

Home in the heart isn't part

of this

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hurrem's daughter

 Lviv-born Roxelana

(the Ruthenian )

was a foreigner

remembered in Maripol and Mecca.

 

Red hair, poetry, a kiss,

she was always much more than this.

I wonder what Mihrimah 

Roxelana's only daughter

thought -

her mother bought a slave

then a Sultan, free.

She herself must marry at 16.

Mihrimah told by her mother -

outlive your brothers, 

never erasing this -

the red hair, the kiss.

 

the sign -, used to join words to indicate that they have a combined meaning or that they are linked in the grammar of a sentence (as in pick-me-up, rock-forming ), to indicate the division of a word at the end of a line, or to indicate a missing or implied element (as in short- and long-term ).

Hyphenated

 

 

Table of Contents

Introduction

nematode

writing quiet

clepsydra

nets

an unfinished account of

new moon projections

reel dream

ta-ke-ya-bu-ya-ke-ta

scrimshaw

record of passages (river)

barbe à papa

well water

third teen

less than, out of or into

the thrush resurrectionist

the spongy moth despaired

the yellow dog (Carpaccio)

the yellow dog (Goya)

peony

float

water tableau

wrote

memento avium

the fisher queen

web

talking stone

trash bird

the psalm

a season’s sleeping tent 

rice field underwater

shunt

allotment

beringia

the tree, the turning pine

bridge

Epilogue

 

net

camoflage

catch

caught

ought to make some

break

You'd been raging,

beating your head 

against the wall.

She made the call.

At the knock

you blocked it out,

answered calmly.

Police.

They knew.

they knew.

You realise

she recorded it.

 

Later you call

from the hospital.

 

I'm fine, you insist,

shuttered, alone.

You need to get me out of here!

We're agreed.

You need to stay.

Police took the gun away.

 

Inside your mind

is a hospital too.

It's in there where

there's no room 

for your children

partner

us.

Inside you,

it's clear

we're just passengers for now,

along with the other voices,

all of us ghosts,

riding

synapses,

currents.

 

 

saqqara bird

 

By Dawoudk - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4332420

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

saqqara bird