The Voice, The Sound, The Song
England’s education secretary Nicky Morgan has rejected MPs’ calls to make sex-and-relationship
education compulsory in all schools – BBC News, 11th February, 2016
1
A congregation of girls rattling
like tambourines were once played
in the back of cars. Detached
dance-hall tracks and the reek
of aftershave choked. While the boys
sweated out some kind of love-language
hard to swallow, those girls kept cotton-wool
in their mouths. Stuffed ears with fingers,
thought of themselves erupting into song,
but remained silent –
convinced they needed someone
else’s tongue to make them sing.
*
Where did he learn to roll over
and welcome the moon in so quickly?
While she’s still wide-eyed
and waiting for a crescendo
to rush her skin, an orchestra
of high and low notes to lift
her skywards like a hymn. !
Where did she learn that sex
was nothing but the tune
of repentance? The waltz
of his hands so quick to start
and stop. When did the break
of her heart turn into a love
song writing its own end?
2
A congregation of boys blowing
like trumpets were once played
in the back of cars. Detached
dance hall tracks and the reek
of perfume choked. While the girls
sweated some kind of love-language
hard to swallow, those boys bit
their lips broken,kept their eyes glazed,
thought of themselves erupting into song
but remained silent –
convinced they needed someone
else’s tongue to make them sing.
*
Where did she learn to roll over
and shut out the sun, while he practised
a duet solo? A role created
from online videos.
Where did he learn that a maestro
plays a lonely longing
on the backbone of him? !
Voice breaks with age
from countertenor to bass,
yet he still stays misunderstood.
Why did he think that sex
was nothing but the slow dance
of her leaving?
*
Never taught the whole note
of skin, never taught the fine tuning
of fingers across flesh, the treble of pleasure,
the rhythm of two equal humans
moving through the scales of each
others’ voices.
Rebecca Tantony graduated from Bath Spa University with a First Class Honours in Creative Writing. She’s currently completing her Masters in Poetry at the same institute. In 2015 Burning Eye Books published her first collection, Talk You Round Till Dusk Website:
www.rebecca-tantony.com