Poetry by Steven Rogers
Hope is not the thing with feathers. It’s the weight of his sleep when I was soft rocking singing with sways slunk low below the glows of the piggy night lamp my aching arms like splintered wasps skewering my muscles I counted to three hundred — one hundred for each year of his life — his breath soft highs and sighs slow like warm silk drifts ¬ on the hairs of my arm Then a thought repulsive split gavelled stabs into me this is what he would look like if he was dead. In my arms. No, not what it feels like. Just what it looks like I understand I’m sickened to think this with the shameful bravado of such willing awfulness I try to reason that it's just the shape of my monstrous fear with which I’m manacled down it’s just my nauseous unconscious poking it’s nose in to make a suppose could I by just thinking it make it corporal? might I bring the death to life? Mine a culpable thought crime made in my mind I’m undone. Damn I’m dumb—founded. unfolded I vow I will never tell anyone this thought At three hundred and fifty I test to slope down sinking him to the bed his legs straighten as cradleless he’s shored in the cool sheets I feel his unweight There is a whimper he stays asleep but my arm is under his head and my consideration is this — that I would rather cut off my arm than risk waking him. And this goes some way to prove to myself I am not a sick prick. I am treacled stealth Holding my breath I sledge myself from under his slumber And wait. I’m all caught air and mineral still waiting for his call He remains asleep Hope is protean It is not the sweep of easy wind nor downy flake not slow silk snow not drifts, not delicate like shimmer It’s grim and limby It’s not a parking space. It doesn't lift us It’s not the ‘it could be you’ blue finger. It’s not the apathetic sceptics who give us a sporting chance. It’s not the slut clicked guilt petitions not the imagery, too bitter to imagine, of little Alan — application rejected — his body face down on the shore a cradleless one. laying. Three too. ‘That is the strangest sea that never asks a crumb of me’ looking as though he’s sleeping Unweight, in the arms of a soldier. So I count to five hundred and five watched sleep by his side