Storm Tapes


Your songs are like bottles of rainwater -
milky, of different PHs, minerals -
in your garden of ivy-trailed earth
guarded by tombs primed for moon-faced
children with wax paper and silver
and gold crayons. They peer, hands
around railings, deadly red berries
smeared open on the path dotted with starlings.
People have been coming here for years,
while failing schools have closed, the adolescent
moved out, obtained a license,
cousins moved in to complete a course,
drumsticks spinning like the spokes of a wheel.

The ground is choked with ivy, the borders
close bushes. An upside down Smarties lid,
the letter A. The arch of his chain-mailed
head. The sockets of stones studding the earth.
The dew running lengthways down a railing
before it is absorbed by a glove.

The weather-centre was in public view,
actually in the middle of the pavement
on one side of the street.
There it is: the needle scratching theatrically
onto graph paper
great clouds of profit and loss, unspooling
endlessly. So finely calibrated,
a baby's skin instrument
a sculptor carving a baby's face
from stone, so subtle beneath his knife
you cannot help but say 'Shhh! He's sleeping.'