Bittersweet
I bathe in the bittersweetness
of ill sons
and bereaved friends
and strangers connecting
and and and
old friends back on track
and death in life
and birth after death
and the limitations of language
and the beauty of words
and pain with depth
and the realness of me
and all this turning upside down
and creation from destruction
and who’d have thought it
and I wouldn’t have guessed
and we know so much
and we know so little.
And the bittersweetness
sits in my heart
and pulls at my heartstrings
(you know we have heartstrings)
and I’m in love with it all
and I wouldn’t want anything less
and I’m not looking for anything more.
I bathe in bittersweetness,
that tang in the heart
that leaves nothing to do
and nowhere to go
and the tears run down my cheeks
and one drops from the end of my nose
and I can’t pretend that I don’t love it all
and that this isn’t what my heart was made for.
Wild
No more pain, the wind says –
you’ve been too long
in its quicksand.
Beyond the muteness,
beyond the cravenness,
there’s this –
this inlet where
the tide comes in,
these limpet-strewn rocks,
and the orange beak
of the oystercatcher
in the dim winter light.
Yes, layer upon layer
has been stripped,
but what of wildness?
On this rain-lashed beach,
it will no longer wait.
It wants me back:
I have been on loan to civility
for far too long
Inhibition
If I was uninhibited
my hair would be
wild and long,
my eyes would be
dark-ringed, like they used to be,
I would wear silver boots –
legs akimbo –
and show my cleavage
whenever I felt like it.
If I was uninhibited
my house would be
a sumptuous, beautiful, eccentric mess –
as would I.
And if I was uninhibited
I would take up space
like I meant it.
Sisters, there would be
so much more of me.
If I was uninhibited
you would know me.
If I was uninhibited
I would take back my sexuality –
lock stock and both smoking barrels –
and refashion it
entirely for my own ends.
If I was uninhibited
I would be spunky as you like,
spilling over with generosity.
I would be in the fray,
punching my weight,
all muscles and teeth-baring,
snarling, howling, shrieking uproariously
and with the biggest shit-eating
most glorious radiant grin
you have ever seen –
that is, when I wasn’t being silent because –
well, because.
Fiona Robertson