Yesterday’s wine
today’s tears
plonk down the river
if you please
with its winding reeds
and soaked up fields
marshes in the distance that can not breath
it wasn’t the wine you needed after all
yellow-greenish tint with the head sore
today’s cheap bottle of sadness that no one sees
getting stuck on the bend with mud and fleas
there’s your private river or wine
winding down, winding down.
The heart is hanging on the wall where he works. It has a suede strap. If he changed jobs tomorrow he would take it to the new place and hang it on the wall the same way. When he looks at its pink surface he sees her putting the charm made of quartz around his neck all those years ago. He would never consider wearing anything like that before. He was already a big man then, though not fat, his frame contrasted with her fragile figure. She felt safe in his embrace and he knew it too. The sooner he let her go the easier it will be but that was a lie he has been telling himself. First, he couldn’t get enough of her body and then her soul crept up on him like a tie dye. Today he is a man of authority, he advises presidents and high officials on matters of state but he can’t do it without the pink charm.
‘The quartz clarifies your emotions’, she used to say. Little did she know he had none. He has lost them in the ocean between Europe and Arabian peninsula. No emotions in him, no courage either to tell her he was already married. After lovemaking, all kinds of thoughts entered his mind but the lips didn’t move. In another place, in another time, we would have been husband and wife. He stared at the ceiling. Love is a myth, steeped in endless longing. Longing for a stranger that’s beyond your reach. Isn’t that what Arab poets wrote about, the unrequited love? They drunk some more of the nana tea, the minty flavour trickled down their throats and he wanted to kiss her again. She never made any noise when she dosed off, her breath touching his arm. Traffic picked up at Kings Road and Sun started to melt into the Sea like a bowl of honey. There was a man doing Tai Chi on the beach. It would be a perfect moment for Time to stop.
Last time she saw him they ordered two sugar sprinkled croissants. Almonds scattered on two mountains of pastry like camel backs. ‘One, two, three’, he counted them to avoid eye contact. Somehow, he knew what she wanted to say. Maybe he’d seen it before. When did she turn her back on careless lovemaking? His nervous body wanted to gag her. Put the pastry in her mouth and smother the icing around her lips. Wipe it off. Kiss the porcelain skin. She’s always been a doll! But you can’t compel anyone without looking at their eyes. It was too early in the morning to talk about love but she spoke of it from the bottom of her heart. The bell rang every time a new customer came in. It was the final countdown and she knew it too. Her voice dragged through the Costa bar full of lazy Brightonians and eventually evaporated into the sea air. It’s still wondering about to this day. Lost-love.
15 years later, wind & rain sent little grains of sand down on Britain. The car was covered by thin veil as it shimmered in the morning Sun. ‘Did you know that sand is actually quartz stone very finely ground by the ocean?’ Her daughter had a knack for curious facts. Or maybe the teacher has mentioned it in the lesson. She remembered the quartz heart and felt the suede strap between the fingers. His neck, where the shirt met his flesh, used to be so warm. She used to slip the heart underneath it. Of all the things they said and did, it was his chest that lingered in her mind the most. She checked for the mirror. Her daughters’ brows, as dark as his, were always brooding. She saw his purple lips in a woman’s face, so full and soft. ‘I had no idea, never thought about sand storms’, she pretended to say casually.
He found her on Twitter last year. Direct messages came every now and then, she called them ‘tweets behind the tweets’. Secret tweets. Tweets hidden from his wife and 4 daughters. When was the first daughter born?, she wondered. We also have a daughter, she wanted to tweet back. Or, we made a daughter together. Or, I had your daughter. You gave me a daughter. God gave us a daughter. The man could only make daughters, it seemed.
And that Tuesday, she put a photo on Twitter: ‘she is clever like you’.
Under the sun so distant people do not believe it exists
With a face pale like morning sickness and
Invisible frozen veins of purple blue
we’ve been thrown together into perfect distance.
Somewhere in Midlands, lovers walk side by side.
But not us. We are two dots equally far from happiness.
You used complain of the cold weather in March
and I said that March was two thirds winter.
After all, they do not call them snow drops for nothing.
You have gone darker. I saw your pictures on Instagram.
I didn’t think you’d ever put colour on your hair.
But it wasn’t you, I guess.
Your wife must have painted your hair.
That was a few weeks ago cause today you’re ashen.
We have done many Marches together
some in the car and some on foot.
The motorway splits the Sandwell Valley in half
I am 15 years older and I annoy you. We’re no longer lovers.
The trees are still bare, there are the cows and horses and you and I –
we’re breaking the Covid rules and for what – this measly walk?
‘Look at the sunset’, the couple behind us says…
Beyond the field and few crab apple trees, the orange line has revealed itself
like lava trapped in marble
like the letter I have never sent,
a love pill buried in time.
Let it rain silver pines and golden reindeers
sliding off paper wrappers like naughty children
caught on ribbons,
ribbons that would prefer to drift across the countryside
or better, whip about in hands of female dancers,
shaking off fake gold until everything is true again.
But, the weather is too bland for such frolics!
Even the cones are not glistening, apart from those she crafted herself in late November.
Robins, the knights of colour, either hide in bushes or have morphed into gift tags.
Holy wishes are kicked about where pine needles gather dust –
crumbs from the table & shedded skin float in the microscopic sheen
– the Holy You – omnipresent, even when you not there!
Male friends stop by and smoulder the heaven that is already overcast.
It is hard to say which is nicotine and which is fog.
‘Promised, you won’t smoke’, she shouted from the window.
‘Watch out! The paper snowflake is about to fly away!’
Inside is neon lighting
and the chairs are plastic stools –
her back hurts.
She is a housekeeper by day
and a prostitute by night.
They polish her nails and file them down
build up of flour, garlic and lemon
is steeped into fortified water.
The sediments of scrubbing powder
disappear in an instant.
There’s a sample menu on the wall,
a world of possibilities –
blue and pink background with ivy, diamonds
gems, geometrical,
ethnic or just white.
She picks a turquoise,
like a sea on drugs
and marl like Dover sky,
a bit of white, yellow…
How much can one cram into a nail?
Her palms are only dainty.
She thinks about the man,
his underwear was washed out like hers
but he still raped her…
xxx to be continued
© Irena Revina
Image: Pixabay Vargazs
This poem is from a collection I am preparing dedicated to people and things that shape our world yet are invisible…Images are clear in my head but stories are still evolving…Your suggestions and comments are very welcome. I would like to be able to publish the collection on my next birthday in May. Without your encouragement I would have never gone this far in sharing my writing…so thank you my followers.
Not a migrant 