Three poems by Tamar Yoseloff including new work commissioned for the recent Sensing Spaces exhibition at the Royal Academy.
Forest
My feet, rough machines,
trudge worn paths;
I must move or I’ll root.
The sky has gone to ground;
light darkens my step.
The forest folds in on itself,
reveals an empire of insects,
animals cut into puzzles
by the pillars of trees.
Hazelwood, cure for what ails;
its bark stings but doesn’t
break the skin.
My feet slip on the crush
of stone, unreliable floor.
My fingers fur with dust –
I put them to my face, smell
the sharp cast of age.
No map, no way out.
I dig my bed in the dirt,
place my ear to earth.
(Commissioned by Ekphrasis for the recent Sensing Spaces exhibition at the Royal Academy.)
Tokens
Objects which were left by mothers giving up their babies to the Foundling Hospital between 1741 and 1750 and which remained the property of the hospital governors.
1.
My heart has fled,
its good meat
a nourishment for another
and what is left
is this case for nothing,
hard and empty,
a reminder of the mother
who carried you inside her
then released you to the light.
2.
How can we be so beautiful,
rejected by our creator,
jewels born out of sand?
We grow to fit our conditions,
the mantle of our host
a temporary home.
We are firm, imperfect,
like grains of rice which do not
stave off your hunger.
Too dear for the likes of her,
your mother. A seamstress
or a lady’s maid, fallen
from grace, the way we fell
from a bodice or a brooch,
our lustre dimmed.
3.
I am a shield for a thumb,
in the bright battle
of needle and thread,
an old hat, a nip of rum,
a tap on the head
for the naughty child,
a shuck of tin, a tick
on the glass from a blowse
saying let me in,
a neat bit, a magic trick:
tip me and I’m gone,
gone, like the girl
who handed me over,
a tiny trinket, nothing
she’d miss.
4.
I am a gaol without a door,
a will of iron. I cannot release
the circle of myself, latched
to my heartless body. No rest
from the work of obstruction,
no rest for those who’ve sinned.
I heave a weight, cold
to the touch, I taste of death
when you put me to your tongue
but I am speechless, charmless.
I am the warden of memory
and I have thrown away the key.
5.
This to remember her by:
her profile realised in me,
the callous ache of shell,
each curl of her hair,
the noble line of her nose,
but she remains unknown;
a speck of a woman
receding, like my nature,
underwater.
6.
to a door I cannot open
to a heart that will stay broken
to a story never told
to a Bible that holds your name
to a locket that hides your face
to the story of your shame
to a puzzle I can’t mend
to a tear I can’t unrend
to a story without end
1. a hazelnut shell, 2. a string of seed pearls, 3. a thimble, 4. a padlock, 5. a tiny cameo, 6. a key
(First published in Tokens for the Foundlings – Seren, 2012)
Silk
Glissando the small
shimmer of my sashay.
Ssh, or you’ll miss me.
You’ll miss me,
the cool dip as I slip
from your fingers:
the one that got away.
A miraculous fish,
all glide and guggle,
as I dive into my sea
of troubles.
You’ve only
skimmed the surface.
I wear this, precious gift
of industrious worms,
so I’m engrained
in your memory, like
the green light, red room,
the geisha gloom
of black silk slick
under your fingers
as you undo those
fiddly little buttons
one by one, and open me:
a Pandora’s box,
a bag of tricks,
a billet-doux
addressed to someone else.
(First published in Fetch – Salt, 2007)