After Andrew Marvell<\/em><\/p>\nIt was a time of laurels,
\na fearless time. I broke away
\nto write \u2013 bed in the woods,
\non the river a moon of ice.
\nNights unsealed, and the knot of
\nsleep slipped, a beat into waking.
\n You came and took me like a child
\n by the hand to show me the garden. <\/p>\n
We stepped into a maze of hedges,
\neach leaf a flower then wings
\nlifting, that would have lifted me.
\nA border of tulips stood up
\nlike a row of varnished nails
\nand I was glad of your company.
\n You said it would all be gone
\n by morning and we should taste it;<\/p>\n
taste it. Sacs of green sap showed
\nour faces, multiple and convex
\nas in a hall of mirrors. Our mouths
\nkissed and merged, stretched
\nto grimaces. We had touched it
\nand it would remember us, an X
\n on a roll of used up ribbon
\n typed over itself, and again. <\/p>\n
A field of forget-me-knots
\nwere stars, deep as blue; we moved
\nthrough a see-through radiance
\nthe texture of honeycombs,
\nhoney-scented, like a thought
\nunvoiced at the back of the throat.
\n It was too much, and you reeled
\n me in to the shade of a lucent spot<\/p>\n
where we abandoned our skins.
\nHow mossy the ground was,
\na green bed for entwining;
\na spring ran down to a pool
\nof brightness where water lilies
\nbudded to pink hearts that opened
\n and sang with pink tongues;
\n we sang with them, wordless as birds<\/p>\n
flown to the boughs above us.
\nMouths of silver uttered a lament
\nfrom a grove of birch and hazel
\nmaking a sympathetic music.
\nAs dark faltered towards first light
\nwe made a meal of herbs and fungi.
\n You blew smoke from the fire
\n of sacred things, saying them over.<\/p>\n
A wood grew above and around us,
\nash and elder running the span
\nof seasons through berry and seed,
\nnaked as grief, then back to green.
\nIn the distance a chestnut eye
\nand a chestnut thigh winked:
\n a young oak pushed out a hip
\n and a rowan shifted to woman. <\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be clear: this was no Eden
\nbut a journey into the mind,
\nand where the mind goes gliding
\nbeyond the shores of its ocean
\nfinding another beyond it.
\nYou said, this is your vision
\n to be kept and told again
\n in some way that fits the telling.<\/p>\n
Our time was up. Sycamore pods
\nfuzzed the air, bees were busy
\ngathering and an apple tree,
\nheavily laden, hunched and shook.
\nI caught both fruits that fell
\nand rubbed them against my leg
\n until they were small white suns.
\n We ate in the silence, burning.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Motorcycle Man<\/h4>\n
First here I couldn\u2019t sleep,
\nwoken by a hand at my face,
\nthe room cold although it was august
\nand colder still the three nights<\/p>\n
I tried an exorcism \u2013 salt water,
\ncrystals, the usual circumspection \u2013
\nall I could achieve a reckoning,
\nan agreement to co-exist.<\/p>\n
Every house has its ghosts.
\nWhat is it they say about stone:
\nminerals record like water,
\nmemory its element? <\/p>\n
It was sadness returned \u2013
\nMalcolm, whose house this was,
\nkilled in a motorcycle accident \u2013
\nand sadness that lingered.<\/p>\n
My son, two years old, sleep-
\nwalking: the young man
\ncome to him instead, helmet
\nunder his arm like some parody. <\/p>\n
One day we will leave and leave
\nbehind us our ju-ju
\nof tantrums and broken nights,
\nevery sorry word I ever gave out<\/p>\n
at midnight, at three in the morning;
\nthe nightmare that attends
\na homecoming \u2013 the speed
\nof it, faceless \u2013 shaking me open.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Burning Bed<\/h4>\n
After Freud<\/em><\/p>\nThis is sleep, this trick, mind viscous
\nas a bubble of air from a diver, and where
\nyou come to find me, as if I were lost,<\/p>\n
your head in flame, your hand on my arm
\na fever hand plucking at my sleeve. The door
\nto your room is a cast peeling from the dark,<\/p>\n
a house crumpling like a sheet of lit paper.
\nAnd it comes to this: when you were six,
\nawake downstairs, you saved your father<\/p>\n
from his burning house \u2013 you now re-stitched,
\na refugee from walls black with fire \u2013
\nwindows bulbous as water exploding onto the street.<\/p>\n
Connectives, filaments, scribble of wire, spirit map,
\nthis stutter and rush, one spark arcing free
\nonto your bed; then, ash fragments, petals of cloth.<\/p>\n
I have left you somewhere out of sheer forgetfulness:
\nthe motorway\u2019s weedy bank, a city falling
\nto ruin, a path across moorland, a forest. <\/p>\n
The phone rings, urgent: you are in electricity<\/em>.
\nI see you picked out in miniature on gold plate.
\nTo have you in this world there is something I must pay. <\/p>\nYou lift the covers and slip in. You radiate,
\nmouth against my ear, Mother, I am burning<\/em>. Tears
\nslide to the pillow and evaporate. That voice again: wake<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Woman of the Tribe<\/h4>\n
It will be a girl, one says, passing
\nher hand over my belly as I carry
\nits load up the Cathedral Road.
\nI see a ring; you will marry. This other
\nten years earlier. You will be a teacher
\nand in the future thank me. The poetry,
\njust beginning, is memory-pressed,
\na nib of coal suffused with burning.
\nYou are lucky, see here \u2013 a star <\/p>\n
in my left palm. My son is born
\nfull-term but not without a fight,
\nthe midwife forcing her hand into the birth
\ncanal to unhook the umbilical,
\nhelping him come \u2013 whether he wants to
\nor not \u2013 to the room, candle-dark,
\nwith its cast of caryatids: a boxer
\nblue and bruised from the ring,
\nhis own star inked into his wrist.<\/p>\n
What they know, these women,
\nis handed down, inherited, like luck,
\na whisper in the DNA or hands
\nin the darkness passing coins.
\nThey pull us from star to dawn,
\npromising, prophesying. Sometimes
\nthey are right, light like emblems
\nabout our wrists, sometimes they are
\nwrong, light closing on emptiness.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Garden After Andrew Marvell It was a time of laurels, a fearless time. I broke away to write \u2013 bed in the woods, on the river a moon of ice. Nights unsealed, and the knot of sleep slipped, a beat into waking. You came and took me like a child by the hand to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[333,334],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Four Poems - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6413\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6413&page=2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Four Poems - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Garden After Andrew Marvell It was a time of laurels, a fearless time. I broke away to write \u2013 bed in the woods, on the river a moon of ice. Nights unsealed, and the knot of sleep slipped, a beat into waking. 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She also writes fiction, and has won two Northern Writer's awards for her novels-in-progress. Sarah is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing for Lancaster University, and lives in Hebden Bridge where she will direct the first Sylvia Plath Literary Festival in 2022.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?author=32\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Four Poems - The Manchester Review","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6413","next":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6413&page=2","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Four Poems - The Manchester Review","og_description":"The Garden After Andrew Marvell It was a time of laurels, a fearless time. I broke away to write \u2013 bed in the woods, on the river a moon of ice. 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