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Hélène Armstrong

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Couledoux ('Liveasy')

Later, she said it was for the country air:
I had been sick, and needed it to recover.

I remember vaguely
a landscape defined by a mass of green,
some grey stones in the green,
a blanket of blue sky.  The silence.
I remember
the deepest bed ever, made of feathers and
every morning the strangeness of large bowls
and coarse bread.                  
For a long time I thought
I had been there on my own - the old feeling.
but she assures me she was there too
and my sister.
I realise it must be true
when I see myself running to her
after watching the farmer
beat his screaming cat to death in the yard.
The animal was sick, they said.
It took a long time to die.
She said they do these things in the countryside.

Mostly, I remember
her silence, echoed by mine.
I would try to play, except
that I never knew how to play.
Did we make daisy-chains? find crickets?
I see nothing, feel nothing.

      Later, the name of the hamlet was never mentioned.
I know it was a funny name
Couledoux:  'Liveasy'. As if we could ever.
And since I know that she hated the countryside,
why would we go to the countryside
since we already lived in the countryside?
After, my father would look at her slyly.
She would return his gaze, resigned.

I felt I knew that
we had been running away.

 

Hélène Armstrong lives in London.  She has had several poems published by Magma and Envoi.

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