Six Poems by Caroline Bird
PN Review 139, May - June 2001
Gingerbread House
He smelt of 'fresh from the oven' adulthood,
his tongue on the hinge of his lips, his eyes spinning
with sex and cinnamon as he invited you in.
You gazed with wonder at his gingerbread house,
rocking back on your heels with childish delight.
You took a long drag on your lollypop stick
then flicked it away.
Later you spat it all back out to your friends,
showed them the goodies you'd brought back
hidden underneath your tongue. You licked
their pink bedrooms with your knowledge,
spread your laughter thumb deep on their walls,
tasted the irony on your teeth.
Look little children, come peek at the trail of bread,
look how the teeth marks are still fresh
since they were ripped from the loaf,
look how the birds swoop, hundreds and thousands
of hungry red mouths.
Licorice doormat, sherbet coated window pane,
marzipan stained glass, milk chocolate letter box,
gingerbread door. His hair like spun sugar
in your hands.
More cream in your coffee dear?
You really are the sweetest child.
Running through the forest, the soft breeze
at each girl's back, like the sound of fairies' wings.
Swooping, diving, disappearing in the shadows,
they come like wolves to the house where he sleeps.
The wizard, the prince, the eldest son
and as his walls are eaten from around his bed,
he dreams of adult things, running, swooping,
diving and of how the sugar doesn't taste as sweet
once you've gorged, indulged, stuffed yourself
with every crumb, every lick and strip.
Left not a single melting piece untouched.
He smelt of 'fresh from the oven' adulthood
They eat him too, his pale skin vibrates in their fingers,
and the rain falls on his mattress and the place
where his house used to be.
At last, licking their lips they return to the forest,
no longer wolves, just girls. They look for their path
through the night. Lost. They blame the Robins,
they blame the Swallows, they blame the Swans,
the Eagles, they blame the Vultures
and their hungry red mouths.
Year of the Woman
It was the year of the woman. You broke a bough
when you sat on a swing, nail varnish on the sides
of your baby doll mouth. Cursed an empty room.
Years at school taught you how to hide your gum
at the top of your mouth. A teacher opened a book
on page forty-nine for a decade. Oh the silence
when you sat down for class and found her gazing
with horror at middle age. Sexy clothes that bit
your bum, tired of hot chocolate, gulped an espresso
without making a face and felt like God.
Backwards and forward went the clock as you
twizzled in bed with dreams of seedless oranges,
little fingers tapping in time to the car radio
and whipping out a twenty pound note just to listen
to the sound. It was the year of the woman.
You had the backhand sulk, the nonchalance,
the eyebrow, even the 'just had a bath and passed
all my exams' grammar school lark, all to perfection.
But you took it all in time, walked with a step
in your dance, a forecast for lighting,
a storm on your tongue
and a bubble in your throat just itching to burst.
A Window Overlooking a Garden
Only takes you so far, fate. Left me at your door,
with a fist poised to knock.
People leave holes behind them, now I have to fly
to avoid the ground. I opened a small wooden box,
the past hit me in the neck like a truncheon,
a magic roundabout somewhere changed direction.
On my way to you, I was walking through your city
late in the moon/sun swap. Neon with its glare
and all the high heeled glory of drunken women,
running from nothing.
The city unravelled itself to follow me across the lawn
and down by the stone boy who is coughing up
transparent blood. I can never say what I plan.
The flowers were dying for winter, the wind was whipped,
love rolled off my tongue and into the night.
Only takes you so far, fate, to the end of the pier
but not into the lake, to the mouth but not the smile.
The city is catching me up, its black breath on my hair.
I watch as my fist is unclenched,
my footsteps taken backwards and erased,
and somewhere a window laughs.
They've seen it all before.
I Came To See If You Were Okay
I came to see if you were okay,
not because I'm bothered, but because
my mate asked me to because he
had something to do that probably
could have waited until tomorrow
and all that but he wasn't going to
come anyway but his mum said
or something, but anyway I was
asked to tell you, at least I think
I've remembered it right, that there's
no need to be down and stuff
because we'll always be your friends.
Um I'm not actually part of that
we because I don't know you.
Anyway you look okay.
Dusk and Petrol
If you cross your eyes slightly then the lawn is on fire.
I watch a plane flying low, flaring through the dusk,
I stir my coffee twice and wait for it to settle
as the man on the radio with a voice like sinking bread
tells the nation that dousing yourself with petrol
isn't a good thing to do. Spontaneous rainfalls of rolling eyes
are swooping across the country, they see everything,
so don't go out of the house, don't stay in the house,
don't move, run for your life. My coffee is too hot,
I now have a mouth like the bottom of a steaming pipe
and it's too early to go to bed. I think about hospitals
to pass the time, think about memories seeping through scars,
think about fainting surgeons.
'The doctors said there was nothing they could do.'
Why do we have doctors that can't do anything?
Can they walk, talk, keep a clean house?
The lawn is burning itself out now, I pick up the phone
then put it down, repeat the action. Love
is a double-bladed knife. I find it much easier to make enemies,
I can make them out of gingerbread, playdoh, leaves,
I can model them to look like you. I can place them face
down in the sink. I can forget.
Gothic
Don't put us with your children, we're not fit for them to hear.
Attitudes, we'll give you purple roses for eyes
if you throw us half a chance. Though now and then we get words
stuck in our stomachs that have to come out, smiles like snakes
on our tongues, but most of the time we're all right. Full moon
on the night, swept in with our coats like black rivers, our scowls
on our sleeves.
I almost had you down for dead, but you chickened out that time.
Rituals done and dusted, pour the blood into wine, falling behind
with the school work, falling behind with the school,
take a sip of this my dear and show a bit more leg.
Don't put us with your children we're not fit for them to see.
Schizophrenic, suicidal, what ever amuses, spur of the shock.
Brisk with our heads of gothic underworld, taking the devil by her hand.
Though now and then we feel a shiver, tears of salt ice, shimmer
of a something. Full moon on the night, we'll be fifteen soon.
Take our drinks to the watchtower, witness the sun dissolve
under the murmur of a chant.
Think of your children, as we raise our glasses, focus our emerald eyes.
Caroline Bird is a poet and playwright. Her 2017 collection, In These Days of Prohibition, was shortlisted for the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize and the Ted Hughes Award. A two-time winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award, her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes was published in 2002 when she was 15. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2001 and the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008 and 2010. She was shortlisted for Most Promising New Playwright at the Off-West-End Awards, and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her theatre credits include: The Trojan Women (Gate Theatre, 2012), The Trial of Dennis the Menace (Purcell Room, 2012), Chamber Piece (Lyric Hammersmith, 2013), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Northern Stage, 2015), and The Iphigenia Quartet (Gate Theatre, 2016). She was one of the five official poets at the 2012 London Olympics.
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