Issue 3: September 2003
Rhian Gallagher | A.B. Jackson | John McAuliffe | Jane Routh | Sarah Wardle
RHIAN GALLAGHER
My Father's Faith
We think of him as here
along the home-stretch of the cemetery.
In today's deserted quiet
it's as if I'm landscaping him in,
back from inland hills, inside the fence-line
where marcrocarpas, plied by the south beach wind,
bend and right themselves.
Yet the stone is for us now, marker
on this newly muddled earth
with its top side of clay that the rains will settle.
Unlike him, I believe without any sureness.
But if there's marriage of a good heart to promised heaven
he should be miles from here by now,
in that backyard of paradise,
chopping the wood, no doubt, and feeding the animals.
Her Face
Not sleeping but with eyes closed,
a letting-go softness
blooming across her brow, her cheek.
My eyes are not enough,
my fingers lighten on her face
and it's like touching inside her
beyond myself and coming back
with a universe to be shaped
into that single word.
Even now as she brushes the footsteps of sleep
I know my voice could reach her
yet against any word from me
her face is complete.
The Tip
I could be here for hours, learning how to live with myself,
treading carefully because of all the broken glass.
The gulls zoning in on clippings, the sound
they made was like clippings. The sea never emptied.
There was a speed of cloud.
Climbing round torn-open cars I touched each crash
on the way, like it meant something.
Swinging through the old Ford's windscreen
I thought of Dr Who's telephone box.
Amid clouds of smoke and smells of rust
I pushed what levers there were and pumped the pedals.
When nothing worked I leant back
against raw springs and waited.
Rhian Gallagher was born in New Zealand, and has lived in London for the past 13 years.
First collection available from Amazon.co.uk: Salt Water Creek (Enitharmon, 2003).