for you are the butcher’s daughter.

  Where have you been, my little daughter

  in the winter weather?

  I have met a man of war, mother,

  he has given me four hoops to dance through

  and he says I must love him for ever.

  Oh no, my treasure

  you must come in and shut the door

  for you are the butcher’s daughter.

  Where have you been, my little daughter,

  out in stormy weather?

  I have met with a prince, mother,

  he has given me three promises

  and I must rule his heart for ever.

  Oh no, my treasure

  you must give back his promises

  for you are the butcher’s daughter.

  Where have you been, my little daughter

  in the wild of the weather?

  I have spoken to a wise man, mother,

  who gave me knowledge of good and evil

  and said I must learn from him for ever.

  Oh no, my treasure

  you have no need of his knowledge

  for you are the butcher’s daughter.

  Where have you been, my little, daughter

  out in the summer weather?

  I have met with a butcher, mother,

  and he is sharpening a knife for me

  for I am the butcher’s daughter.

  The greenfield ghost

  The greenfield ghost is not much of a ghost,

  it is a ghost of dammed-up streams,

  it is a ghost of slow walks home

  and sunburn and blackberry stains.

  The greenfield ghost is not much of a ghost.

  It is the ghost of low-grade land,

  it is the ghost of lovers holding hands

  on evening strolls out of town.

  The greenfield ghost is not much of a ghost.

  It is the ghost of mothers at dusk calling,

  it is the ghost of children leaving their dens

  for safe houses which will cover them.

  Herring girl

  See this ’un here, this little bone needle,

  he belonged to the net menders.

  I heard the crackle in your throat

  like fishbone caught there, not words.

  And this other ’un, he’s wood, look,

  you said to the radio interviewer

  and I couldn’t see the fine-fashioned needle

  or the seams on your face,

  but I heard the enormous hiss of herring

  when they let the tailboard down

  and the buyers bargaining

  as the tide reached their boots,

  I heard the heave of the cart, the herring girls’

  laugh as they flashed their knives –

  Such lovely voices we all had

  you ought t’ have heard us

  singing like Gracie Fields

  or else out of the hymn book.

  Up to your elbows, you gutted

  your pile of herring. The sludge

  was silver, got everywhere.

  Your hands were fiery and blooded.

  from the slash and the tweak and the salt

  and the heap of innards for the gulls.

  I’d put a little bit o’ bandage round these fingers

  – you can see where they been nicked,

  we had to keep going so quick

  we could never wear gloves.

  Russian doll

  When I held you up to my cheek you were cold

  when I came close to your smile it dissolved,

  the paint on your lips was as deep

  as the steaming ruby of beetroot soup

  but your breath smelled of varnish and pine

  and your eyes swivelled away from mine.

  When I wanted to open you up

  you glowed, dumpy and perfect

  smoothing your dozen little selves

  like rolls of fat under your apron

  and I hadn’t the heart to look at them.

  I knew I would be spoiling something.

  But when I listened to your heart

  I heard the worlds inside of you spinning

  like the earth on its axis spinning.

  Breeze of ghosts

  Tall ship hanging out at the horizon

  tall ship blistering the horizon

  you’ve been there so long

  your sheets and decks white

  in the sun

  what wind whispers you in?

  Tall ship creaking at the horizon

  your captain long gone

  your crew in the cabin

  drinking white rum

  their breath spiralling

  what wind breathes you in?

  Tall ship tilting to the shoreline

  past Spanish palms

  tall ship coming in like a swan

  in the midday sun

  what wind blows you in?

  It is the cool

  wind of the morning

  stirring my masts

  before the sun

  burns it to nothing,

  they call it

  breeze of ghosts.

  FROM

  THE APPLE FALL

  (1983)

  The marshalling yard

  In the goods yard the tracks are unmarked.

  Snow lies, the sky is full of it.

  Its hush swells in the dark.

  Grasped by black ice on black

  a massive noise of breathing

  fills the tracks;

  cold women, ready for departure

  smooth their worn skirts

  and ice steals through their hands like children

  from whose touch they have already been parted.

  Now like a summer

  the train comes

  beating the platform

  with its blue wings.

  The women stir. They sigh.

  Feet slide

  warm on a wooden stairway

  then a voice calls and

  milk drenched with aniseed

  drawls on the walk to school.

  At last they leave.

  Their breathless neighbours

  steal from the woods, the barns,

  and tender straw

  sticks to their palms.

  A cow here in the June meadow

  A cow here in the June meadow

  where clouds pile, tower above tower.

  We lie, buried in sunburn,

  our picnic a warm

  paper of street tastes,

  she like a gold cloud

  steps, moony.

  Her silky rump dips

  into the grasses, buffeting

  a mass of seed ready to run off in flower.

  We stroll under the elder, smell

  wine, trace blackfly along its leaf-veins

  then burning and yawning we pile

  kisses onto the hot upholstery.

  Now evening shivers along the water surface.

  The cow, suddenly planted stands – her tender

  skin pollened all over –

  ready to nudge all night at the cold grasses,

  her udder heavily and more heavily swinging.

  Zelda

  At Great Neck one Easter

  were Scott

  Ring Lardner

  and Zelda, who sat

  neck high in catalogues like reading cards

  her hair in curl for

  wild stories, applauded.

  A drink, two drinks and a kiss.

  Scott and Ring both love her –

  gold-headed, sky-high Miss

  Alabama. (The lioness

  with still eyes and no affectations

  doesn’t come into this.)

  Some visitors said she ought

  to do more housework, get herself taught

  to cook.

  Above all, find some silent occupation

  rather than mess up Scott’s vocation.

  In Fra
nce her barriers were simplified.

  Her husband developed a work ethic:

  film actresses; puritan elegance;

  tipped eyes spilling material

  like fresh Americas. You see

  said Scott they know about work, like me.

  You can’t beat a writer for justifying adultery.

  Zelda

  always wanted to be a dancer

  she said, writhing

  among the gentians that smelled of medicine.

  A dancer in a sweat lather is not beautiful.

  A dancer’s mind can get fixed.

  Give me a wooden floor, a practice dress,

  a sheet of mirrors and hours of labour

  and lie me with my spine to the floor

  supple secure.

  She handed these back too

  with her gold head and her senses.

  She asks for visits. She makes herself hollow

  with tears, dropped in the same cup.

  Here at the edge of her sensations

  there is no chance.

  Evening falls on her Montgomery verandah.

  No cars come by. Her only visitor

  his voice, slender along the telephone wire.

  The Polish husband

  The traffic halted

  and for a moment

  the broad green avenue

  hung like a wave

  while a woman crossing

  stopped me and said

  ‘Can you show me my wedding?

  – In which church is it going to be held?’

  The lorries hooted at her

  as she stood there on the island

  for her cloak fell back

  and under it her legs were bare.

  Her hair was dyed blonde

  and her sad face deeply tanned.

  I asked her ‘What is the name of your husband?’

  She wasn’t sure, but she knew his first name was Joe,

  she’d met him in Poland

  and this was the time for the wedding.

  There was a cathedral behind us

  and a sign to the centre of the town.

  ‘I am not an expert on weddings,’

  I said, ‘but take that honey-coloured building

  which squats on its lawns like a cat –

  at least there’s music playing inside it.’

  So she ran with her heels tapping

  and the long, narrow folds of her cloak falling apart.

  A veil on wire flew from her head,

  her white figure ducked in the porch and blew out.

  But Joe, the Polish man. In the rush of this town

  I can’t say whether she even found him

  to go up the incense-heavy church beside him

  under the bridal weight of her clothes,

  or whether he was one of the lorry drivers

  to whom her brown, hurrying legs were exposed.

  The damson

  Where have you gone

  small child,

  the damson bloom

  on your eyes

  the still heap

  of your flesh

  lightly composed

  in a grey shawl,

  your skull’s pulse

  stains you,

  the veins slip deep.

  Two lights burn

  at the mouth of the cave

  where the air’s thin

  and the tunnels boom

  with your slippery blood.

  Your unripe cheeks cling

  to the leaves, to the wall,

  your grasp unpeels

  and your bruises murmur

  while blueness clouds

  on the down of your eyes,

  your tears erode

  and your smile files

  through your lips like a soldier

  who shoots at the sky

  and you flash up in silver;

  where are you now

  little one,

  peeled almond,

  damson bloom?

  In Rodmell Garden

  It’s past nine and breakfast is over.

  With morning frost on my hands I cross

  the white grass, and go nowhere.

  It’s icy: domestic. A grain

  of coffee burns my tongue. Its heat

  folds into the first cigarette.

  The garden and air are still.

  I am a stone and the world falls from me.

  I feel untouchable – a new planet

  where life knows it isn’t safe to begin.

  From silver flakes of ash I shape

  a fin and watch it with anguish.

  I hear apples rolling above me;

  November twigs; a bare existence –

  my sister is a marvellous

  dolphin, flanking her young.

  Her blood flushes her skin

  but mine is trapped. Occasional moments

  allow me to bathe in their dumb sweetness.

  My loose pips ripen. My night subsides

  rushing, like the long glide of an owl.

  Raw peace. A pale, frost-lit morning.

  The black treads of my husband on the lawn

  as he goes from the house to the loft

  laying out apples.

  The apple fall

  In a back garden I’m painting

  the outside toilet in shell and antelope.

  The big domestic bramley tree

  hangs close to me, rosy and leafless.

  Sometimes an apple thumps

  into the bushes I’ve spattered with turpentine

  while my brush moves with a suck

  over the burnt-off door frame.

  Towels from the massage parlour

  are out on the line next door:

  all those bodies sweating into them

  each day – the fabric stiffening –

  towels bodiless and sex over.

  I load the brush with paint again

  and I hear myself breathing.

  Sun slips off the wall

  so the yard is cool

  and lumbered with shadows,

  and then a cannonade of apples

  punches the wall and my arms,

  the ripe stripes on their cheeks fall open,

  flesh spurts and the juices fizz and glisten.

  Pharaoh’s daughter

  The slowly moving river in summer

  where bulrushes, mallow and water forget-me-not

  slip to their still faces.

  A child’s body

  joins their reflections,

  his plastic boat

  drifts into midstream

  and though I lean down to

  brown water that smells of peppermint

  I can’t get at it:

  my willow branch flails and pushes the boat outwards.

  He smiles quickly

  and tells me it doesn’t matter;

  my feet grip in the mud

  and mash blue flowers under them.

  Then we go home

  masking with summer days the misery

  that has haunted a whole summer.

  I think once of the Egyptian woman

  who drew a baby from the bulrushes

  hearing it mew in the damp

  odrorous growth holding its cradle.

  There’s nothing here but the boat

  caught by its string

  and through this shimmering day I struggle

  drawn down by the webbed

  years, the child’s life cradled within.

  Domestic poem

  So, how decisive a house is:

  quilted, a net of blood and green

  droops on repeated actions at nightfall.

  A bath run through the wall

  comforts the older boy sleeping

  meshed in the odours of breath and Calpol

  while in the maternity hospital

  ancillaries rinse out the blood bottles;

  the feel and the spore

  of babies’
sleep stays here.

  Later, some flat-packed plastic

  swells to a parachute of oxygen

  holding the sick through their downspin,

  now I am well enough, I

  iron, and place the folded sheets in bags

  from which I shall take them, identical,

  after the birth of my child.

  And now the house closes us,

  close on us,

  like fruit we rest in its warm branches

  and though it’s time for the child to come

  nobody knows it, the night passes

  while I sleepwalk the summer heat.

  Months shunt me and I bring you

  like an old engine hauling the blue

  spaces that flash between track and train time.

  Mist rises, smelling of petrol’s

  burnt offerings, new born,

  oily and huge, the lorries drum

  on Stokes’ Croft,