Age Rings

My age is shown in armoured plates,

shells coating my body. Each one no thicker

than a single hair and full of patch jobs

from nicks and scrapes I’ve received

clawing my way here through thorned words,

cactus remarks, daggers thrown at me with a single look.

Sometimes, not even I can remember who I am underneath,

and I know I would feel naked if I stripped them back.

But that lemon juice you offer is so fresh.

Advertisement

Bookmark

I turn the page, resting my voice for a second

and catch your gaze on me, eyes bright

and full of delight.

You’ve said many times

that my reading voice is magical.

I wouldn’t have believed you if you hadn’t looked at me that way every time.

If I didn’t know

you’d never

use words that were untrue just to flatter me.

Your words are always true,

as is your encouragement.

As is your love.

And so I shall read for you

until the years catch us up

and I can read no more.

Silken

A strand shines white,

a glimmer on the darkened street.

The moonlight has touched it,

but its fellows remain that rich brown

hanging down to your shoulders.

Each one a piece of your thoughts,

a ribbon tied fast to the building blocks

that make you.

Old strands gift their being to others,

and then leave.

Fresh beginnings grow in their stead.

Sand Castles

It’s the way you sit,

palms out with fingers stretching towards the horizon

and the crashing waves

dancing to the beat of your heart.

 

Your skin is weathered, cracked,

but every wrinkle holds

a lifetime of memories.

 

Flower picking at midnight under

a bright moon.

Breaths held as tales of ghostly galleons approaching the shore

are told.

Diving from the waterfall

into the lake below, ignoring mother’s warnings.

 

The clouds part at your exhale,

and you fold into the sand

as the tide pulls out.

Tree smiths

The elves slipped quietly into the girl’s dreams,

carefully tending to the seedling of her imagination

before adulthood sprayed it with weedkiller.

‘Grow strong,’ they whispered to it, ‘into a mighty

tree that will only expand as the years pass,

never withering even with extreme age.’

And then they bowed to it and each other,

before drifting out to find the next child

threatened by the corsets of society and peers.

Faces in places

Faces glance down on us when we’re not looking.

Knotted mouths with noses in the air, hands

above their heads, pointing, staring,

laughing at how small we are

compared to their lengthy limbs

that could scoop us up if they could move at all.

The ivy beards cover their mouths,

fungi hiding their tears of mirth.

 

Times

You can lean

against many things in life.

The sturdy and immoving wall;

Ideas which stretch across lifetimes, continents, cultures;

Friends who were once strangers.

And then

there are those photographs

of diferent times,

times we took for granted

And times we thought

were hard before we knew

what that realĺy meant.

Change

The wind is changing

I feel it on my cheeks

and in my heart

in the touch of soft kisses on my hands,

falling leaves curtain-drawn into

the sleeping cold.

Cubed

Inside the neat black cube

lies a silver heart.

It has never felt the breath of air

that comes from an open box.

 

For all its years,

the metal is worn

only slightly;

if it were of flora,

then it would be as green

as the newest seedling

and have experienced

even less.

 

A sudden jolt

jars the black cube.

It falls from its perch

down

to the floor.

The heart doesn’t know

what to do.

Its world is changing.

The cube is broken;

air and light finally leak in.