Secret Agent Artist

I’m lying in bed
eating my forth ice cream,
when I get a text from an acquaintance
I haven’t seen for ages.

Having completed her 4th degree
in medically related sciences,
she has been spending the last year
seriously training as an Olympic Athelete.

She, and her fantastically attractive husband
will be flying out to Africa to volunteer on a
high powered, seriously important
UN governed project. She will be swimming

10 miles at my local gym -
the one across the road from me, that I never go in -
would I like to sponsor her?
I drop ice cream on the bed.

****

I’m going through bank statements
when my father rings to tell me
he’s invested all his money (my inheritance)
in a high class, can’t go wrong, fail safe

Angora Rabbit Breeding Facility. Unfortunately
the facility, has been very badly hit
by an unprecedented outbreak of
Mxamitosis. He and my mother

are now destitute, and urgently needing
somewhere else to live. Could they come and
kip on the floor of my council bedsit?
no pressure for the bed, he’s sure

my mother’s arthritis - will only hurt a bit.
He’s not sure how long they’ll need to stay
but is certain we’ll all get along swimmingly.
The taxis’ waiting. He’s got Angora Jumper for me.

I like Bank Holiday Mondays in bookshops
drinking coffee and reading library books.

I’ve never understood the way they sell sunglasses,
or The Daily Mail - but I like that they keep

a small grand piano for miniature playing.

I like watching men in suits buy guides to Italy
from attendants with butterfly painted faces.

I like the pensioners on three for two
and the kids colliding in biographies.

I like the cycle home,
summer heat hitting shoulders.

I like Bank Holiday Mondays.
Dislike Tuesdays.

Another day it smells of coffee:
the kind my mother found whilst traveling,
brought back with her from the islands
discovered on her cruise.

It fills a warm house,
the inside cuff of a woolen cardigan;
sitting on a bus, waiting anxious
it would comfort you.

Hope tastes like a cough sweet,
reminds you of the time you lay in bed,
sits on your tongue, hums like a gun,
an alpine forest, sharp

ice cube. It’s a pike gliding
or a small boat
bobbing up and down
on a broad horizon, green land

rising into view.
It’s a bell ringing, sail stirred
blue sunlight over hull. Hope
would anchor you. Touching it,

you’d feel dunes -
feathers, the clean bowl
of a silk bag, the balloon cord
that you tried to grab

but missed, as a child.
If hope was here
it would watch for you,
search hands, know -

which of us might need it most.
It would move quietly,
pressing string
into palms.

His two left feet
arms around her waist
hung like clubs, or ice picks;
wing men, flippers on a bird -
his hands were:
meaty, sweaty, pockmarked, sour
she guessed been drinking
since the hour
the place had opened - this too tall,
clumsy man
who’d not so much as asked
as fallen in her arms-
was deadlocked round her calves -
left her helpless
only option just to - half dance
half cart - him back across the floor
bright lights, sweaty palms,
half dance -
one - two
half drag -
three - four
the man -
with the two left arms,
dangling useless like a
third limb - a soggy narn,
gabbling senseless ‘bout his mother
or her bra - get your hands from off my
ah! the girl - with her strong right arm
decanted him into a stool
left him there to gurgle snooze.
The girl -
went back to dance,

Another sleepless night. Another slice
of jam and bread and butter. At one
I make myself a cup of
dandelion water. Sip it as the seconds

slither into hours.

I used to eat apples before going to bed -
then my therapist said
they would keep me awake with their acid.
The bread -

is hardly a salve,

hardly a nytol, or blow to the head,
or chloroformed hanky.
None of things I might need to survive.
And I don’t even have any apples.

Not any more.
I don’t even buy them,
regularly

My parents are interned
on a cruise ship at Madeira -
I heard it on the radio,
sitting on the sofa:

“You’re parents are interned
in their cruise ship at Maderia -
they won’t be coming home
as prearranged to meet you”

and it’s just the sort of thing
that I’d expect to happen.
My parents with their tans,
bemuda shorts and glasses -

my father saying “Margaret!
We never should have come here”
my mother saying “Paul!
perhaps we should call Watchdog -

we might end up in jail!
or in a refugee camp -
we’ll never live it down
with the neighbours back in Ratby.”

My parents are interned
in a cruise ship in Madeira
I heard it on the radio,
sitting on the sofa:

The operator running,
the ship Van Gogh the Second
has failed to pay it’s debts
and is entrenched in battle.

And I can see my mother
loving every minute,
ringing out the drama
like an episode of Neighbours -

so I’m almost sorry later,
when they get back reception -
and my father texts a message
to say their out of “danger” -

that even as he types this
the ship is leaving habour
and they’ll be back in Falmouth
sometime late this Sunday.

My parent’s were interned
on a cruise ship at Madeira -
but all tonight’s a party
and all the drinks are grattis.

My parents type out screens
of happy reassurance -
their sea legs are quite solid
and their souvenirs are lovely.

But I worry for their epic
of Odyssey adventure,
I worry for the bungalow
waiting back in Leicester.

I worry how they’ll cope
without the smell of sunlight -
the salty spray on linen
the deck-chairs and the boardwalks.

I worry now the sun
is setting on Madeira
and now the ship is edging
close across the water -

I worry like they’re zebras
returning from adventures -
Noah’s distant cargo
coming back to rest up -

How they’ll find their home.

Just before he left
I’d talked about the song by Radiohead -
the one that -

use to fly like Peter Pan
that Ricky Gervais
once had said

raised a lump
in his mouth.
Anyhow,

I’d mentioned this
and then he’d left…

and it began to play.

Which only goes to show
coincidence alive and well -
inside of bars and random chat.

It was a little like the pair of gloves -
the ones we’d watched -
rollered by the tractor just outside.

You would have got
the metaphor
if you’d been drinking at the bar.

As with Aberystwith,
we find it quite insistent
in our spaces of
remembering:

The small stone house
with it’s hard to light engine,
cold pine floor,
but warm kitchen -

is the same -

as the carpet covered lift,
seventh floor balcony, huge room
with the white sheets, tea
we got from room service.

We have vivid memories -

of cycling down hill,
rain hammering -
plastic rivers over overalls
collecting in the collars of our hoods.

We have vivid memories -

of Hatshepsuit - the female ruler with the
stone beard. The wedding cake of
wide stairs, Egyptian children
running down them with their -

arms spread full tilt.

At 5 in the morning,
listening to the - sigh of traffic -
waiting for the - sky to lighten
meaning work -

I can’t not think -

of the wind trapped hill, walk along the Nile,
man who asked for money
’cause he knew us from the
hotel.

I can’t not think

of the place we bought the calibir
the freezing cold November pier
the crammed souks,
and the dark mud -

the coat I lost -

somewhere vague
between the valley
and the deep,
of the burnt desert.

I said I’d not eat in McDonalds -
but then it was there-

the proverbial mountain of gold dust
lit up like a dancing girl -

and everywhere else was closed -
it being a religious day

and only the church of Ronald McDonald,
was sending it’s teenage priests to pray.

I said I’d not eat in McDonalds

but my boyfriend was hungry
with nowhere nearby -

I said it was hardly a place I would favour
but thought for his sake I should give it a try.

I said I’d not eat in McDonalds

with it’s choices of burger
or burger and fries.

When I asked them the options
for veggie and diet -

they told me the Salad McChicken was nice.

How much cake
is ok to eat
at one sitting?

Does it make a difference
if it’s dinner, or the middle
of the afternoon? Oh!

I’ve just had two
grainy slabs of chewy cake.
One made with carrots,

the other fruit.
If you buy them from the shop
with the health food -

does it stop them being unhealthy?
If you have them at 5
then later have supper

If you drink them with tea
and then go to sleep,
content as a guppie-

Surely, that can’t be wrong?