The Dowser

Her hands sculpt bone
and flesh out of silence.
She adds colours pulled out
of drained away sounds,
things flushed and supposedly
lost forever: a wedding ring
thrown off a bridge in spite,
a champagne bottle's broken
throat, the clink of glasses.
Her lips complete the scene,
dredging minor details
from unreturned echoes: a groom's
unravelling tattoo, flecks
of blood in a sink, the bride's
swan-dress, snapped and drowning.
What emerges are notes
from a type of music rarely heard.

Cinema

The first film I saw
at the cinema was Masters
of the Universe with Dolph
Lundgren and Frank Langella.
I was seven and bored,
wanting the minutes
to scurry like mice. I started
picturing a western instead
of the drab eighties movie:
Saguaro cactuses intimidating
like Clint Eastwood, salmon-pink
vistas. Cardboard shoot-outs.
Father snapped me out of it
with a quick smack on the shoulder,
unaware of the bullets concealed
in my breath, my tongue moulding
itself into the shape of a gun,
ready for the showdown.

The Abandoned Houses, Stamford Hill

Glimpsed before they were salted with dusk,
each a deserted scene from Chernobyl
or Three-Mile Island: breakfast tables
abandoned, family photos left behind,
jackets still hanging on the backs of chairs.
Cutlery slowly fossilising, turning the colour
of anchovies. Their undissovable memories
chirp like Geiger counters when the street
is silent, unspooling household wiring.
Sometimes you might see patches
of dandelions in the front gardens bend,
as if in the presence of breath.