Thursday, December 30, 2010

WHAT ALBA'S MOTHER SAW UNDER THE BED

Magdalene bed number four eight six black priest from Africa’s hand hovers vacuum packed bags of morphine hooked to ship’s rails above the bed sheets stamped N H S white light dog collar fluorescent tubes at eye level last catholic in the world black hand sign of the cross your turn mother flashes red number twenty five voyage

“Whose turn? Whose next? Twenty six? Twenty seven?”


faded blue gown starch many times laundered laundered falls open on a shoulder of dimpled ham clear plastic mask pumps oxygen into side of dead wrinkled meat ribs rise and fall pumped up pumped in sunken eyes already withered portholes in another dimension on another voyage gaze past them all out of it all number twenty nine at the end of the tunnel white light black hand signs the cross and the virgin Mary disguised as archangel flaming heart Jesus last catholic in the world sits under the bed beckoning under the cream coloured frame of the electric motors coiled cables bed on the cold salmon shade fake granite chip floor in a puddle of celestial light urine drain bag leaking yellow on salmon linoleum

“Come aboard! Come aboard! Whose turn? Thirty one? Thirty two?



yellow on salmon sunset black priest from Africa my mother dying vacuum packed bags of morphine hooked to ship’s rails at eye level portholes your turn flashes red number twenty five all aboard voyage tubed up tubed out bag drip drip dripping dripping tick tock tick tock into her vein butcher’s meat on the slab and the whole god damned family audience impatient at the door of ward four eighty six clutching their little pink paper numbers for an audience drip drip dripping their turns and drip drip dripping time running out for absolutions number forty seven nephews and niece niece whose turn into the next world carry my weight away for me spitting on the light at the end of the tunnel desperately pleading the butcher for her money back where is the guarantee verbal diarrhoea not a blind bit of notice taken vacuum packed bags of morphine hooked to ship’s rails above the bed snow sheets stamped National Health Service white light frosted fluorescent tubes at eye level your turn flashes red number twenty five voyage virgin Mary disguised as archangel flaming heart hippy Captain Jesus sits under the bed beckoning through the dog collar porthole under the cream coloured frame of the electric bed sinks to horizontal at my mother’s last smile

“I’m not here any more, kids! I’m over the sea and far away carried from port by celestial sails that sing....National Health Service....on the infinite cool black breeze....

Sunday, December 26, 2010

SPACE JUNK, THE NIGHTTIME BRACE

The night she failed to return, I thought nothing of it. The pillow might well have smelt of her sweat, her breath, her last glass of wine, her last meal, her toothpaste, touches of mouthwash, traces of perfume, her inhalant, but I thought nothing of it.

Two nights after she had failed to return, I found myself gazing at The Pretty Girl’s nighttime brace, surgical pink plastic and stainless steel wire, abandoned on a white tissue on the white painted floorboards next to the head of our mattress.

Every time I gingerly sniffed over it in the coming days, two days, it smelt vaguely of her breath, her last meal, her toothpaste, touches of mouthwash, traces of perfume, her inhalant. For a further two days I imagined it still smelt vaguely of her breath, her toothpaste, touches of mouthwash, traces of perfume, her inhalant. For another couple of days I managed, occasionally, to convince myself, in an argument of desperate factions, that I could catch faint hints of her breath, her toothpaste, touches of mouthwash, traces of perfume, her inhalant, but then, two more days and I was inventing the smell of her breath, her last glass of wine, her last meal, her toothpaste and mouthwash, traces of her perfume, her inhalant.

And then, it all just vanished into impossibility.


That night I slipped the brace into my mouth and lived its surgical pink plastic texture, steel wire, a torture against my bleeding gums. I made it hurt, and in spite of the hurt, all taste of her was long lost in silent arguments of factitious memories however hard I tried to suck her life back out of the ultimate souvenir of our intimacy.

The last souvenir, the one and only thing surviving that had lived inside of her that had not been flushed away or recycled into the detritus of the outside world, for, even the blood from her last period had been tasted on my tongue during hours, swallowed, and all too quickly digested, but at least tasted, more than three weeks before the night she had failed to return. And I had thought everything of it, she, nothing of it.