Travelling
You have been travelling with me for decades;
even before you were born;
your toothbrush next to mine in my suitcase,
the bristles damp from the cold water in our last hotel.
I tipped the porter through your fingers;
your napkin wiped my lower lip;
clean, white linen you had straightened
by your plate at dinner.
There was a fold, a crease in the napkin,
like the gristle-spine of a chicken carcass
springing at my touch; indelibly pressed into the fibres,
like my laundry tags with your name on.
* Our commisserations to Helen Pletts, who seems to have spent half the summer undergoing root canal work at her local dentists. In a comment that is an object lesson in prose writing itself she adds… “had order accutane 40 mg another root canal yesterday… just in time to enhance the bruises
nicely from the last one… which had started to fade slightly… more
likely to be mistaken for a boxing hare currently than a mad march
poet(!)… had a nice little x-ray taken at the finish… shame I cannot
send you one… a real memento of the whole pain thing… dancing in the
black shadow of the plates were two little strange white trots which
look as if they are eerily striding out beneath two hefty
molars… with curled up toes like court jesters… maybe they will
up-sticks and walk off to seek their fortune soon… one can never tell
with teeth…!”
We'll have more novacaine fuelled tales from Helen later this summer.