from the masks

1

they are watching from the trees

hidden in my skirts a list of curious names for small men
hidden in my skirts a necklace of silver bulletts
hidden in my skirts a mirror full of spite
hidden in my skirts a hundred years of dreams
hidden in my skirts a hopeful of handsome princes

i am listening now for desire
i hear it hoofing through the undergrowth
galloping in lace to this space
where i have begun to cultivate faces
i found them staring into mirrors
shop windows tv sets coffee cups
& i am so very old now i know
the magic of a kiss
and it does not wake the sleeping

2

adrift
heave of satin
hauled to stump by neck

remains pitched forward
breathless
forced to

among curves & pleats
stuff shimmered & gathered in
satin ice white

beneath net
there is no body
sleeping still

a hundred years of luscious spells
delicate ear pressed to earth
listening to foot fall and leaves

she has not moved for such a long time
the beetles shine darkly around her blond hair
sleeping still despite her wet feet

& the frost
needling bare arms

3

I dreamed the forest had taken me
green enchantment woven in ivy

I dreamed it held me in stubborn arms
ferny pillow for my head

I dreamed I heard the heart of the forest
beating & my own sweet heart following

I dreamed my skin as soft as new leaves
my hair falling fair as spider web

I dreamed the forest fetched a doll
of me & woke me w/ sunlight & rain

I dreamed I spoke in the voice of forest
my lips were dry leaves

I dreamed I flew through the forest
on a sycamore seed

until I fell
& settled down to sleep

4

because it is the dress she died in the thread is rotten & the zip once tight at her hip is ripped & rusted from sleeping on the ground on a bed of mud & rotting leaves or slithering beneath yew trees on lush green where the earth is tender on her bones in the shadow of evergreens she lays listening to old records on a portable record player singing down golden leaves & trying to remember when it happened & what it was like to be that girl in the house in the chair in front of the fire drinking tea listening to the quiet or the clock or the whispering mothers what it was like to be the girl in the light watching a woman arrange cups & a man in a haze of pipe smoke humming a tune & dust fidgety in the falling light & then down a path littered w/ pink blossom squishy under her boots the suitcase bumping against her thigh holding hands looking down the path & into the forest her own little girl hand deep in the clasp of a black glove fingers pressed in crease & gleam of leather

5

do I go down into shadow do I go down to the cool of this place dark and broken green bottle glass deep green down cutting litter and grit gravel down who is there who’s in the deep dark deep wood am I under yet am I under it’s only a short walk into sunlight and so briefly lit yellow light chuckling and swaying and further now down under and into this little black tunnel cold on my arms and what remains is old springs bicycle tyres boot black stone old toilet tiles under and into the tunnel sweet blacklitter stole away quick though don’t leave him don’t leave him there he can’t run quick quick and into a field a path through the long gold grass whipsering at us gold green up and over the curve of the hill to a spread of trees and tumbling wall where there might be horses dapple grey with gentle and magical eyes in a long distance they graze heads down slender and long legged caught in the frame of gold and summer blue at this perfect distance but there is no gold-beyond-field-full-of-horses the path goes down to the muddy pool into the shadow dark garden and its litter of wormy warted apples go up to the front door go on up the path among the festering fruit and spiteful trees see if you can though who’s watching who has my shoes?

6

the time when she saw herself on the footage, head thrown back and laughing, was the time when she realised she was no longer the woman she’d thought she was. she had changed, her face was thinner, her nose more prominent, her eyes narrower, her teeth longer and yellowish. silver threaded her hair and her neck seemed longer too. panic tore at her chest, for a moment she felt herself coming undone. she got up and moved across the room, hand to her heart like a heroine as if holding the fabric of herself together. she was not sure what she was going to do. she went to make a cup of tea, as if something that ordinary would help, but returned abandoning the kettle to chuckle to itself. even the room seemed different, as if someone else had been in and rearranged everything ever so slightly.

from that point on she couldn’t settle. wine glasses splintered in her hands, doors slammed around her, she moved through the house furiously. the children grew wise and left the room as she came in.

her husband waited.

and while he waited his wife became thinner and thinner

her hips jutted in her black jeans, her fingernails grew long, her elegant hand writhed and twisted, she spent a long long time on the phone, she whispered.

and still everything carried on as normal until things changed.

she dropped the children off at school. off they went down the path getting smaller and smaller. she did not wave to them. they did not turn to wave at her. they had all they needed from her. off they went good bye good bye little packs on little backs, getting ever so small, until they were not there at all.

7

hardly anyone saw them that day except an old old man who was on his way to town to buy a slice of tongue for his tea, a quiet giant who liked walk in the rain and mutter softly, and a sprightly widow out walking hunting dogs and who smiled secretly or sweetly depending.

the pale light was somewhere between stone and silver. full white frothy clouds gallivanted in a big sky and in the breeze the leaves flicked from green to grey. two women ran across the railway bridge. they had fallen from a story against the clatter of graffiti they seemed moth-like and shadowy. they chattered and laughed but no one could tell what they said for although they did not whisper their voices had no sound. perhaps they had lost them in the crackle of leaves. they chased, danced, skipped down the path, holding hands, one holding a battered brown suitcase and wearing a twenties flapper dress, the other in a full white wedding dress.

hardly anyone saw them that day, but those who did had been embarassed or laughed or smiled the smile they keep for children. because the women were pretending weren’t they? they were pretending to be children or they were pretending to be far younger than they really were, which is why they were running into the woods and laughing.
because as everyone knows real grown ups don’t run into the woods laughing. because as everyone knows real grown ups run into the woods crying, mouths stuffed with fear.so they must have been pretending mustn’t they. because they were old enough to know better.

8

there were two children a boy and girl holding hands walking down the path following the soft dust track beneath the trees. cherry blossom had fallen as if they were wedding miniatures in a hysteria of confetti. it was all very pink the path they travelled and they disappeared into that place where the paths slip away under trees and into old cool shadows. goodbye goodbye they had red wellington boots on – his moonblond hair glimmering in the darkening shade and she wore a patchwork skirt because they were hansel and gretle. how big their eyes were and how determined their set little mouths
come on this is the way sludge and mulch of sodden pink slippery blossom and the green light fell from the great open hands of the conker trees
but where were they going?
to plant these?
in their hot salt and vinegar hands little black shiny seeds in the shape of hearts

i thought i saw children or women fallen from a story into the bright grafitti of the city we crossed on the bridge they walked right by me laughing and chatting though what they sd. I cd. not be sure leaves dust & sweet wrappers swirled & crackled about them. one had moon blond hair and a dress of satin & cloud the other

9

seeds
children
wolves
plates
forests
imprisonment

into dark sound into dark space seed as pearl as jewel as ache as tooth as heart. what is growing there in the red ocean the red lake the red firegrate? the one sound growing. earth red note heart war heart worn red as a bead seed lie

what a fib
tell tale tit
yr tongue will split

where did they take them?

I saw them running there, to the woods, two children the boy and the girl, holding hands disappearing down the path and the trees above them as black as nightmare cutting shadow out of their skin with their leaflongwithered fingers, the childrens soft bare arms this way come this way where the ground is mud mulch & lies grow tenderly in the green light

Where are the children going in their lace up shoes and rumpled socks with bruised knees in shorts and t-shirts one in a mustard coloured hat the other in a strawberry patterned apron because that’s how the game started in the corner of the garden where they shouldn’t have been anyway with rose-petal soup and spider webs in their hair and the seeds in their hot salt n vinegar hands that must be planted

Who gave you those? From a crumpled paper bag from a crumpled corner of a newspaper from a crumpled tissue sniffing and where have they gone now

We are going to plant these seeds. They are not ordinary seeds and will not grow in the garden so we must leave it right now and go right down the path through the gate, through the gap in the rules under the heavy sweet smelling must-nots and the tangle of never-takes following our turned up twitchy noses through the dead bluebells and motherdie and over the tufty grass past the white moons of mushroom where it’s darker and tho the day began gold the forest’s cool and still and listening and gathered all around and we still haven’t found the right place yet.

Where are you going with those seeds?

The silver voice of the wolf. She is the colour of the underside of birch leaves she is the singer in the forest wearing a moon shift and dancing the springy grass loose and slender, she has a velvet mouth and knows the story

Can she be trusted?

The children dream of eating chips of riding bicycles of climbing trees of leading horses of building towers of orbiting the moon in their pyjamas of flying wearing shorts and t-shirts running through a house, they feel the carpet beneath their feet, they smell the gleaming surfaces, taste the static of the living room they drink fizzy pop and bounce on the sofa, they clobber up and down the stairs and hide in the wardrobes, they eat the toothpaste and squirt perfume accidently knock over pot plants switch the lights on and off on and off jump on the beds 2 4 6 8 eating cherries off a plate they have little turny up noses when they stop and look in the mirror leaves fall until the bedspread is obliterated. the moon and the rain has made everything shiny. they sit on the bed and play with bones.