Following (for Florence)
I married in a gypsy wedding skirt the colour of wind–blown begonia leaves,
as our peoples were blown along the periphery by winds.
My mother wore it before me. Its weight is the fabric of histories, lives,
floating at my ankles; we tread up steps out of the mud.
My forefathers farmed there with the Prussian plough.
Church bells are rung, cherry petals douse us, stick to our cheeks in rain.
It is gentle water, like smiling tears, as
today I move time on again.
They were the skeletal leaves of Europe; people broken across the back–bone
who climbed mountainous crags, the shoulder–blades of Earth, taking days,
higher and higher, towards
the colours of cold skies, holding little that could warm them.
They managed; we survive.
My skirt is soft as the secret–side of leaves. My skin a softer secret.
Warmer for a ring; material ribboned at the back.
Warmer for the child already started inside me, pressing
us onwards together.
as our peoples were blown along the periphery by winds.
My mother wore it before me. Its weight is the fabric of histories, lives,
floating at my ankles; we tread up steps out of the mud.
My forefathers farmed there with the Prussian plough.
Church bells are rung, cherry petals douse us, stick to our cheeks in rain.
It is gentle water, like smiling tears, as
today I move time on again.
They were the skeletal leaves of Europe; people broken across the back–bone
who climbed mountainous crags, the shoulder–blades of Earth, taking days,
higher and higher, towards
the colours of cold skies, holding little that could warm them.
They managed; we survive.
My skirt is soft as the secret–side of leaves. My skin a softer secret.
Warmer for a ring; material ribboned at the back.
Warmer for the child already started inside me, pressing
us onwards together.
Page(s) 34
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