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Feet
The first morning I assume it’s the result of an oversight from the night before. But the following morning and then the one after that I slowly begin to link my cousins’ whispers with my coal-black feet. Eventually I have to ask Tante Annie what’s going on. It started around the house, she says, gliding into their bedroom, standing over them like a zombie. Then into the girls’ rambling room, climbing over the five beds, once even picking up little Katia before placing her back in her bed. One night they spotted me from an upstairs window playing now you see me, now you don’t between the cypresses and poplars along the bridle-path. They followed me through the woods, down to the Garonne. ” What did I look like?” I ask. “Just like in the films: eyes wide, arms oustretched.” Late that night I sit on the edge of my bed cradling each foot in turn, trying to read its sole. Where does it want to go? Is it any part of me at all?
Landmarks & Boundaries
Soon I am outside the city, beyond the formality of Versailles and the strictures of St. Cyr. I have passed Trappes and am heading out into open countryside where my journey becomes easier through fields and sleeping villages. A dog barks. Owls gaze down from the branches of darkly-silhouetted trees. I sense their watchful presence. On and on I travel, taking long strides across valleys, streams, fallen trees. Nothing can stop me until at last the village comes into view. The Square is deserted, the petrol-sign swinging stiffly in the wind. The house is changed but it is the house and I know he is inside.
A golden light radiates under the door. Utter silence as I turn the knob. Gradually my eyes adjust. The room is electric with static and feathers that glide and spiral like a blizzard of snow-flakes. Then I see their bodies. The bed is a trampoline as they bounce entwined, their god-like beauty brushed by a ballet of swans.
I shut the door softly and leave forever. My return to the city is difficult and confused for all the landmarks have changed. I stray into alien territory where the earth is scorched a deep terracotta-red and the isolation is primordial. Should I go forward or back? I retrace my steps, a stranger to myself. At last, stopping to rest and get my bearings, I notice an owl perched on a fence-post and tentatively ask him how long and far my journey will take me. With a detached expression he considers, blinking and ruffling a feather. I understand his reply. It is nothing less than I expected.
(‘Landmarks and Boundaries’ selected and published in the Forward Poetry Book 2013).
The World Is a Swaying Lantern
The world is a swaying lantern and I am a spirit lost in the urban wilderness. A muffled bus glides by, the lucky ones inside lit-up like spectres staring through peep-holes in the whited-out windows. Cars have been abandoned. Road markings and boundaries have vanished. I have relinquished my bed, dreams and reading but cannot get to teach. If only a droshky or troika would enter the scene! There are no announcements at the station. All is still, silent, gagged. Who is the figure edging beside the train tapping the undercarriage with a metal pole, the bell-sound ringing out in the petrified silence? Who is the cloaked woman pacing the platform near the engine, trembling and distraught?
The Chair
Flew through the window when I wasn’t watching. The boy outside the door says it has happened by magic or accident. Believing magic and knowing accident I extract a promise and the boy walks home to the Estate. In the Head’s Office the Head, the Head of Year and the Head of Faculty speak sternly. You mean to say you trust him? they exclaim. I do not mention magic. Next morning the boy is prompt. The Head scratches his head.
(‘The Chair’ was selected and published in the Forward Poetry Book 2013).
Lucy Hamilton Poetry 