Yvonne Green
Slowly the air
Slowly the air began to change, the light jaundiced and we
heard something different, to what the mouths were saying.
Our gaze turned inward, our tongues stilled themselves,
our sense of smell soured, screensavers looped the loop
and we watched them, no one wanted news or dialogue.
The children were mesmerised by their programmes,
operating a reality which met expectations, babies
lay in bauxite, suckled by continuum, the rest of us sat
upright, one day birth happened, separate, and no one
needed to break from their activities, under the steady
eyes was a breathing nose, no constriction had flattened it.
Eyes never met nowadays, what purpose would that serve?
Yes there were places where earth got into the food
and couples knew how to intrigue, but we were the lucky ones,
we knew this, because nothing unexpected ever happened
and we never stopped doing what we wanted.
No one was in charge, although we all knew, that things
had got better, our shoulders were parallel to our machines,
food was the air and its history struck each of us as complicated,
elimination was superseded by a capacity, reprogramming and
reformatting, nothing ever left us except youth.
heard something different, to what the mouths were saying.
Our gaze turned inward, our tongues stilled themselves,
our sense of smell soured, screensavers looped the loop
and we watched them, no one wanted news or dialogue.
The children were mesmerised by their programmes,
operating a reality which met expectations, babies
lay in bauxite, suckled by continuum, the rest of us sat
upright, one day birth happened, separate, and no one
needed to break from their activities, under the steady
eyes was a breathing nose, no constriction had flattened it.
Eyes never met nowadays, what purpose would that serve?
Yes there were places where earth got into the food
and couples knew how to intrigue, but we were the lucky ones,
we knew this, because nothing unexpected ever happened
and we never stopped doing what we wanted.
No one was in charge, although we all knew, that things
had got better, our shoulders were parallel to our machines,
food was the air and its history struck each of us as complicated,
elimination was superseded by a capacity, reprogramming and
reformatting, nothing ever left us except youth.
Yvonne Green has published poems in Arete, Poetry Review, Modern Poetry In Translation, P.E.N., The London Magazine, Cimarron Review (USA), Cumberland Poetry Review (USA) and on BBC Radio 4.
Page(s) 38
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