[Writing with a pile of women on my lap]
Writing with a pile of women on my lap
tramontane wind in Cadaques
when the tramontane wind
blew us in Cadaques
I took a picture
a picture of every latent idea
of us in the rented car
I didn’t trust your driving
olives driving
with a pile of women on their laps
with holes in their stomachs.
You’d cast your fabrics over
the intricate movements
the legacies
the sun
flecked
histories
doubled
edges
formed
in the monastery
and say “‘Charmian and Iris”’
and I would say “‘Irish”’
and you would laugh
isn’t she lovely
as though you understood
every dazed tangent
refusing to be
floored
striking back
gently
across every latent idea of us
every serious
etching
every chorus
of fuck wittery
of boys
writing with piles of women in their laps.
We were told to watch The Turin Horse
we fell asleep watching the blue and grey Turin horse
no thunderstorm
no lighthouse
no organs touching
Cadaques whale bones
scratching us to draw blood
when we forgot
to suffer
to live
awkwardly
in pretty community.
You told the museum attendant
we’d watched The Turin Horse
which we could have
words sucked into nape
“‘have you ever admired a fierce woman?”’
you hissed
stuck fingers
into his patted flesh
then
his head
told him that admiration
will not absolve him
that the French Riviera called
it wants its mimosa back
that your grandmother painted carthorses floor to ceiling
(which I knew were Mediterranean dog limbs).
And I wanted slightly
only sometimes
slightly
to clip
your sensitivity
a parting trick
you so good at falling asleep
with your eye on the prize
keys in hand hanging off the edge of the bed
this might be the way I think about it.
Once in a while I find myself thinking about it
what a great friend I am
how I wrote you poems
about when we forgot
to suffer
to live
awkwardly
in pretty community
when the tramontane wind blew the rented car in Cadaques
the water was clear
I could smell the water
a beaded
tongue
pulling
the
precipice
a covalent
slip
clear water
when we weren’t tour guides
and I wanted to tell you about Carla Lonzi
unparalleled
lineage
bracken veins
harmonising
soft pistachios and a terrible amount of moths in the
glove compartment
wrapped
around one
of your child hands
two of my claw hands.
It was probably terribly cute you concluded
that I just wanted to be at the after party
and uh-oh
get a blanket
and uh-oh
talk about my mother
and you would drag me up
to go hunting
and I would have your back in every bar in Spain
“you don’t wanna mess with her”
I would say
“she spills easily”
I thought about your gut
your furious abdication
the unfortunate facts
you allergic
to the stuff coating painkillers
trying to eat so many of them on my 21st birthday
holding the event close
sincerity killing the cat
no air left
in wired dripping clouds
you licking my eyeball
“listen mate
we’re all into succulents”
always defined
in opposition
and then, as if to comfort me
“this one’s a nice lad”
you said
and crouched
we cut his eyes out of the television
buried them one by one
buried them side by side.
And when I read forward in the poem
to think why did you use that word twice
but I’ve just read it too quickly
I’ve just remembered it
why did you say it’s about
the museum attendant
your father
your husband
can we go back and judge the woman shouting at her son in the café
it might give us clarity
and this time when I write them
when the crown’s awry
that dignity of girls with their big wide hearts
might be mended.
The final image won’t have a sound
just us travelling
I’ll walk in to find you
depressing your feet into every last corner
spitting at the reader
“is this confessional?
Oh I’m sorry,
did we confess something?”
salt hair
inflatable chairs
crackling
and you giving me
expensive make up.
“It’s not for everyone”
you’ll whisper
“oh no
it’s not
for everyone,
it’s
not.
It’s
an
expensive
revolution
and we’re going be smart about this,
this
make up.”
§
“[Writing with a pile of women on my lap]” is from Familiars (Sad Press 2017), and appeared in From London Out: An Anthology of Contemporary English Poetry, ed. Luke Roberts (2017).