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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Charles Bennett

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Teeth

At night they hoist their sails
Of crumpled alabaster, and slip
From the harbour, one by one

To become whatever takes
Their eye: an opal cat who pours
Like milk beneath the glow

Of china roses; a cabbage white
That flitters like the smithereens
Of snow; the flakes of severed

Letters, floating in a whirl of hanging
Clauses. You've probably seen one:
A blonde in ivory satin; a stranded

Car like a single pearl, cool
And alone in the all-night car park;
An albino bathtub, luscious as a slice

Of vanilla ice cream. An isolated
Swan on the purple river stretches out
Its eggshell wings; overhead the squonk

Of a goose announces the end
Of night. And now my bedraggled sheep
Come home, a grubby choir of ruffled

Clouds trying to remember
Their order, grinning like cream,
Innocent as an open sheet of paper.

As long as I live they'll wander each
Night into the world; but when I'm dead
They'll stay where they are: like stars

That show you how things were.

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