A sunny summer day
white butterflies were dancing
we were playing in the park
Lene and me
We were more than four
less than ten
six perhaps
but even then
I never told my mummy

The man was kind of funny
it was a funny kind of picture
naked men and ladies in a great big ring
doing this thing
I see it even now
He had a light brown leather jacket and
orange ***** hair
he wanted us to touch him there
I see it clear as day
then we ran away
But I never told my mummy

Lene's mum and daddy made a great big fuss
They made my mummy hectic
and my dad called the police about the light brown leather jacket
I don't know what the fuss was
It was just the grown ups talking in their
funny kind of voices
They thought I couldn't hear
I wasn't really there

A sunny summer day
We were going on a day trip
Merete and me cycling to the sea
with her little sister
We were more than ten, less than teens
The sunlight was sparkling on the sea
We found the perfect spot and made our little nest
packing out our things and getting changed
But the changing kind of changed things
When we turned around there were
One two three
******* men
I was used to it by then but three in one go?
that's a lot you know

So we had no choice we had to pack it all together
and push our bikes back up the hill
It made me really cross
because of Merete's little sister
so I filled my water bottle in the sea before we left
I caught him by surprise
I snuck up behind the trees
I shook the water on his head
You're disgusting!
I said
Time stopped turning
My tummy stopped churning
I could see his eyes were sad
as he caught me by the wrist and said 'I know'

So
Here is how he bound me
That is all it takes
to take a child and bind her to your shame.
He shackled me forever to the knowledge that it wasn't him
it wasn't him to blame
There was something in him that he couldn't help
It must have been my body then
my horrid stupid body
I wasn't even pretty
If I could only get it off me
I want to tear it off
do you hear?
I'm screaming in disgust
I'm ripping it all off me
You think I asked for this?
You disgust me! I said to my stupid horrid body

For it just kept happening
one way or another
I wasn't even pretty
But I never told my mother
I never wanted her to know
It was too horrible for her
I didn't want to spread it
What's the use in that?
So I never told my mummy
At least I managed that
I never told my mummy.

At two he said
Baby can’t catch the rain and throw it back in the sky
At sixteen she said
You’re all form and no function
He said I love it when you mock me mum
It makes my day

I love you
he said
What does that mean she said
Exactly?
It means he said
I know you he said
And I like you
She laughed
Not all of you of course he said
But even the bits
I don’t like
I’d miss them if they weren’t there

Am I lonely?
she thought
If I am lonely she thought
it´s with the loneliness of a rowboat
ice fast on the shore
Made of wood
with a talent for burning

You.
she said
Yes.
I said
You’re like she said
Yes?
I said
You’re like a glass ornament she said
Yes
I said
Thank you for noticing I said
Thank you
for saying

Hammered
Happy
Raising a smile
Having a hoot
With four men to boot

Apologies, I'm out of change
Why should there always be a price to pay
for making hay
even
when the sun shines

Are the bees disappearing because they're so busy?
In the daily battle of everyday life
Missing in action:
busy bee
That's how you were lost to me
and I
I was lost at sea

Always things more important to do
than me and you
Always things more important to be
than with me
A house to hoover
precautions to take
tickets to book for the theatre


And lo, here we have come full circle
I have gone missing too

My children howl at the moon

I grant you
three overused words
can never do justice
to the way my heart depends
on the continued beating of yours

But why, **** you
could you not have gone hunting for rarer birds
taken a risk with words
Netted a guillemot. A tern, a crane
even a toucan
Written a second rate poem
if I can you can
Conjured forth that secure base
with a bedtime story
for your empress of penguins
your queen of hippopotamuses
your borrower girl

One day, even soon
that flock will have lifted
not to fly south, not to return
and there'll be no more lifting and swooping, no joy
in the swerve of a turn mid-air
no undertones, no attempts to colonise
no smiling eyes

I'll be standing alone under an empty sky
there'll be nothing to look at in wonder or borrow
or any asking why

Doing justice is what murmurations are for
how you've done them and more
You showed us the world and the joy of flying - and look
here I am trying to do it too
but three little starlings will do
A starling for each of your little darlings
Three overused words in a league of their own
I know it's beneath you but see I am
beneath you
I'm down here, just here, I'm no longer hiding
and red herrings are cheaper.

Red herrings are still only
two a'penny

On the fir-clad hill of my childhood
rocky outcrops grew where roses should
green with moss
lit by lichen

Solid ground tumbling steeply
Past the painted white shadows of a large wooden house
the silky feel of a best friend's hair
Past the shop now closed
where we bought milk and sweets
past the beer by the till with its ****** aroma
Past the station still quiet in dark before dawn
bundles of newspapers ready and waiting
Past the sharp fresh cold
then my soft warm bed
Past the lingering scent of soap and of newsprint
Past these sensuous delights

Past even the smoke of my first cigarette
how nauseating, how hard to inhale
how hard I still tried
for smoke rings

Past smooth warm stone gliding into the sea
phosphorescence glinting in silky depths

I still see the world from my cherry tree
a blue expanse of fjord and sky
my generous tree and I
its darkening buds kept their sweet scarlet promise

How steeply solid ground can tumble
barely stopping to catch the yellow leaves in fall
barely solid ground at all

You ask Am I lonely?
Not so.
But my waterlogged oars and my arms long for landfall,
for an old oak with a swing in its wing
rooted in rock and years,
for the sleeping quiet of snow-laden pines
anchored, tethered, still.

I accepted my charge with grace and resolve:
Uniting these distant shores.
I commandeered fleets, armadas even
of ships biscuits, canons and men
I made the journey again and again -
I travelled the earth for what it's worth
and repaid their investments a hundredfold
exchanging trinkets for gold.
But now I am almost old
and still I've not done as told
For a good anthropologist always goes native
The landmasses slip and slide
Setting foot on one shore makes the other recede,
widening the divide

So if I'm lonely it's only for want of a winch
explosives, groundwork,
iron

If I'm lost it's just the absence of feathers,
a flight of ideas, an arrow, a bow
a quill and the will
to use it​

If I'm surly it's purely for want of a fire
crackling with promise, a raging pyre
on which to cast
wet wood.