Video transcript
A hard slap across the cheeks
Broke me through the surface of the water,
I was drowning no longer.
Then they peeled my orange skin, tough,
And the flesh, pulp and seeds fell out.
You can't stick that skin back together.
Jump and Scream and Kick and Punch
I fell from the bedroom window.
The fall hurt less than the palm of her hand on my cheek.
Seeking, probing, what does it mean?
When will the lurking black behind my eye
to the side, fall aside?
Questions, questions by my side?
Where was I on the day he died?
Sweet Peas
Blue Cheese veined fingers break earth at my feet,
The smell of soap overtaken by green and brown.
The tomato plants, neglected, vie for his attention
The criss-cross stems of the sweet peas are reined in.
He took my pink hand in his blue one,
A sea of heads at the sea-side.
'Lost child! Lost child!'
The faces had become mis-shapen,
But I knew HIS unshorn face.
The tears fell on the sand, wet. Lost to the sea.
Blue cheese veined fingers lay still at his side,
The throat constricts with the antisceptic overload,
heavy on the spray to mask the smell of decay.
His last breath.
The sweet peas on the trellis lament their loss.
