Rhubarb after Norman MacCaig And another thing: stop looking like embarrassed celery. It doesn’t suit. How can you stand there, glittery in pink, some of you rigid, some all over the shop? Deep down you’re marooned, a sour forest spilling out beneath a harmful canopy....

You stand behind me / catch my eye / take the snatch of silver

after the accident the plaster
held her still

At boarding school, I had no idea what to do
with myself.  Most of the time,
I hid myself in a paper bag . . .

I arrange my books in order of height,
on a bank of cow parsley,
amid the random oscillations
of a cool breeze

I know others blossom
but I vomit ectoplasm,
and squaring the corners of my bed,
the nurse reminds me I’m not dying.

It is known: a woman like that
brings evil on board.

Heat on the window
baking my face like a biscuit.
I move some hair, look over
at moss and narcissi, in a pot –

You have buried your mother and put
a memorial bench on a high hillside where
the wind blows sunsets straight through
and it’s always better to wear something warm.