Fresh & Rough
Dodgy dreams burn the toast.
The monkey that burst from my belly
blisters my thumb.
Rasberry leaf tea tones the uterus.
A fox cubs stares back,
sits square in the middle of the drive.
A gull announces traffic, wails for sea.
In the night a lithe and sinuous gymnast
wriggles down the gap
between the bottom of the bump and my hips,
slips behind my rib cage, I struggle
to keep up while it flexes,
swings between bone asymetric bars.
I’ve lost track: the monkey’s stronger than me now.
It is a real monkey
born on a hillside, grey with rocks and English sky.
But not birthed by me.
I wake in the morning
listening for a heart beat
under the screech of the lorakeets.
Tags: birth, foxes, Karen McCarthy, rough draft
July 5th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Yesterday I ate samphire by the sea. It tasted of green and salt. Your poem made me think of hypericum and brass. I take these things, place them in a white box on the screen and give them back to Fresh and Rough, one word at a time.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Hypericum: major remedy for nerve pains, especially as a consequence of shingles.
Site of action: the nervous system.
Shingle = beach.
Brass band = beach.
All roads lead back to the beach.
I like the sound of hypericum and brass.