Collected Poems, page 18
run for a train or Dustin Hoffman screaming
Elaine! Elaine! Elaine! or the spacemen in 2001
floating to Strauss. She sponged, soaped, scrubbed;
the prison and hospital stamped on her back,
the park neat on her belly, her navel marking the spot
where the empty bandstand stood, the river again,
heading south, clear as an operation scar,
the war memorial facing the railway station
where trains sighed on the platforms, pining
for Glasgow, London, Liverpool. She knew
you could stand on the railway bridge, waving
goodbye to strangers who stared as you vanished
into the belching steam, tasting future time
on your lip with your tongue. She knew you could run
the back way home – there it was on her thigh –
taking the southern road then cutting off to the left,
the big houses anchored behind their calm green lawns,
the jewels of conkers falling down at your feet,
then duck and dive down Nelson and Churchill
and Kipling and Milton Way until you were home.
She didn’t live there now. She lived down south,
abroad, en route, up north, on a plane or train
or boat, on the road, in hotels, in the back of cabs,
on the phone; but the map was under her stockings,
under her gloves, under the soft silk scarf at her throat,
under her chiffon veil, a delicate braille. Her left knee
marked the grid of her own estate. When
she knelt she felt her father’s house pressing into the flesh,
heard in her head the looped soundtrack of then –
a tennis ball repeatedly thumping a wall,
an ice-cream van crying and hurrying on, a snarl
of children’s shrieks from the overgrown land
where the houses ran out. The motorway groaned
just out of sight. She knew you could hitch
from Junction 13 and knew of a girl who had not
been seen since she did; had heard of a kid who’d run
across all six lanes for a dare before he was tossed
by a lorry into the air like a doll. But the motorway
was flowing away, was a roaring river of metal
and light, cheerio, au revoir, auf wiedersehen, ciao.
She stared in the mirror as she got dressed,
both arms raised over her head, the roads
for east and west running from shoulder
to wrist, the fuzz of woodland or countryside under
each arm. Only her face was clear, her fingers
smoothing in cream, her baby-blue eyes unsure
as they looked at themselves. But her body was certain,
an inch to the mile, knew every nook and cranny,
cul-de-sac, stile, back road, high road, low road,
one-way street of her past. There it all was, back
to front in the glass. She piled on linen, satin, silk,
leather, wool, perfume and mousse and went out.
She got in a limousine. The map perspired
under her clothes. She took a plane. The map seethed
on her flesh. She spoke in a foreign tongue.
The map translated everything back to herself.
She turned out the light and a lover’s hands
caressed the map in the dark from north to south,
lost tourists wandering here and there, all fingers
and thumbs, as their map flapped in the breeze.
So one day, wondering where to go next,
she went back, drove a car for a night and a day,
till the town appeared on her left, the stale cake
of the castle crumbled up on the hill; and she hired
a room with a view and soaked in the bath.
When it grew dark, she went out, thinking
she knew the place like the back of her hand,
but something was wrong. She got lost in arcades,
in streets with new names, in precincts
and walkways, and found that what was familiar
was only facade. Back in her hotel room, she stripped
and lay on the bed. As she slept, her skin sloughed
like a snake’s, the skin of her legs like stockings, silvery,
sheer, like the long gloves of the skin of her arms,
the papery camisole from her chest a perfect match
for the tissuey socks of the skin of her feet. Her sleep
peeled her, lifted a honeymoon thong from her groin,
a delicate bra of skin from her breasts, and all of it
patterned A to Z; a small cross where her parents’ skulls
grinned at the dark. Her new skin showed barely a mark.
She woke and spread out the map on the floor. What
was she looking for? Her skin was her own small ghost,
a shroud to be dead in, a newspaper for old news
to be read in, gift-wrapping, litter, a suicide letter.
She left it there, dressed, checked out, got in the car.
As she drove, the town in the morning sun glittered
behind her. She ate up the miles. Her skin itched,
like a rash, like a slow burn, felt stretched, as though
it belonged to somebody else. Deep in the bone
old streets tunnelled and burrowed, hunting for home.
Beautiful
She was born from an egg,
a daughter of the gods,
divinely fair, a pearl, drop-dead
gorgeous, beautiful, a peach,
a child of grace, a stunner, in her face
the starlike sorrows of immortal eyes.
Who looked there, loved.
She won the heart
of every man she saw.
They stood in line, sighed,
knelt, beseeched Be Mine.
She married one,
but every other mother’s son
swore to be true to her
till death, enchanted
by the perfume of her breath,
her skin’s celebrity.
So when she took a lover, fled,
was nowhere to be seen,
her side of the bed unslept in, cold,
the small coin of her wedding ring
left on the bedside table like a tip,
the wardrobe empty of the drama
of her clothes,
it was War.
A thousand ships –
on every one a thousand men,
each heaving at an oar,
each with her face
before his stinging eyes,
her name tattooed
upon the muscle of his arm,
a handkerchief she’d dropped once
for his lucky charm,
each seeing her as a local girl
made good, the girl next door,
a princess with the common touch,
queen of his heart, pin-up, superstar,
the heads of every coin he’d tossed,
the smile on every note he’d bet at cards –
bragged and shoved across a thousand miles of sea.
Meanwhile, lovely she lay high up
in a foreign castle’s walls, clasped
in a hero’s brawn, loved and loved
and loved again, her cries
like the bird of calamity’s,
drifting down to the boys at the gates
who marched now to the syllables of her name.
Beauty is fame. Some said
she turned into a cloud
and floated home,
falling there like rain, or tears,
upon her husband’s face.
Some said her lover woke
to find her gone,
his sword and clothes gone too,
before they sliced a last grin in his throat.
Some swore they saw her smuggled
on a boat dressed as a boy,
rowed to a ship which slid away at dusk,
beckoned by the finger of the moon.
Some vowed that they were in the crowd
that saw her hung, stared up at her body
as it swung there on the creaking rope,
and noticed how the black silk of her dress
clung to her form, a stylish shroud.
Her maid, who loved her most,
refused to say one word
to anyone at any time or place,
would not describe
one aspect of her face
or tell one anecdote about her life and loves.
But lived alone
and kept a little bird inside a cage.
*
She never aged.
She sashayed up the river
in a golden barge,
her fit girls giggling at her jokes.
She’d tumbled from a rug at Caesar’s feet,
seen him kneel to pick her up
and felt him want her as he did.
She had him gibbering in bed by twelve.
But now, she rolled her carpet on the sand,
put up her crimson tent, laid out
silver plate with grapes and honey, yoghurt,
roasted songbirds, gleaming figs, soft wines,
and soaked herself in jasmine-scented milk.
She knew her man. She knew that when
he stood that night, ten times her strength,
inside the fragrant boudoir of her tent,
and saw her wrapped in satins like a gift,
his time would slow to nothing, zilch,
until his tongue could utter in her mouth.
She reached and pulled him down
to Alexandria, the warm muddy Nile.
Tough beauty. She played with him
at dice, rolled sixes in the dust,
cleaned up, slipped her gambling hand
into his pouch and took his gold, bit it,
Caesar’s head between her teeth.
He crouched with lust. On her couch,
she lay above him, painted him,
her lipstick smeared on his mouth,
her powder blushing on his stubble,
the turquoise of her eyes over his lids.
She matched him glass for glass
in drinking games: sucked lemons, licked
at salt, swallowed something from a bottle
where a dead rat floated, gargled doubles
over trebles, downed a liquid fire in one,
lit a coffee bean in something else, blew it,
gulped, tipped chasers down her throat,
pints down her neck, and held her drink
until the big man slid beneath the table, wrecked.
She watched him hunt. He killed a stag.
She hacked the heart out, held it,
dripping, in the apron of her dress.
She watched him exercise in arms.
His soldiers marched, eyes right, her way.
She let her shawl slip down to show
her shoulders, breasts, and every man
that night saw them again and prayed
her name. She waved him off to war,
then pulled on boy’s clothes, crept
at dusk into his camp, his shadowed tent,
touched him, made him fuck her as a lad.
He had no choice, upped sticks,
downed tools, went back with her,
swooned on her flesh for months,
her fingers in his ears, her kiss
closing his eyes, her stories blethering
on his lips: of armies changing sides,
of cities lost forever in the sea, of snakes.
*
The camera loved her, close-up, back-lit,
adored the waxy pouting of her mouth,
her sleepy, startled gaze. She breathed
the script out in her little voice. They filmed her
famous, filmed her beautiful. Guys fell
in love, dames copied her. An athlete
licked the raindrops from her fingertips
to quench his thirst. She married him.
The US whooped.
They filmed her harder, harder, till her hair
was platinum, her teeth gems, her eyes
sapphires pressed by a banker’s thumb.
She sang to camera one, gushed
at the greased-up lens, her skin investors’ gold,
her fingernails mother-of-pearl, her voice
champagne to sip from her lips. A poet came,
found her wondrous to behold. She married him.
The whole world swooned.
Dumb beauty. She slept in an eye-mask, naked,
drugged, till the maid came, sponged
at her puffy face, painted the beauty on in beige,
pinks, blues. Then it was coffee, pills, booze,
Frank on the record-player, it was put on the mink,
get in the studio car. Somebody big was watching her –
white fur, mouth at the mike, under the lights. Happy
Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, Mr President.
The audience drooled.
They filmed on, deep, dumped what they couldn’t use
on the cutting-room floor, filmed more, quiet please,
action, cut, quiet please, action, cut, quiet please,
action, cut, till she couldn’t die when she died,
couldn’t get older, ill, couldn’t stop saying the lines
or singing the tunes. The smoking cop who watched
as they zipped her into the body-bag noticed
her strong resemblance to herself, the dark roots
of her pubic hair.
*
Dead, she’s elegant bone
in mud, ankles crossed,
knees clamped, hands clasped,
empty head. You know her name.
Plain women turned in the streets
where her shadow fell, under
her spell, swore that what she wore
they’d wear, coloured their hair.
The whole town came
to wave at her on her balcony,
to stare and stare and stare.
Her face was surely a star.
Beauty is fate. They gaped
as her bones danced
in a golden dress in the arms
of her wooden prince, gawped
as she posed alone
in front of the Taj Mahal,
betrayed, beautifully pale.
The cameras gibbered away.
Act like a fucking princess –
how they loved her,
the men from the press –
Give us a smile, cunt.
And her blue eyes widened
to take it all in: the flashbulbs,
the half-mast flags, the acres of flowers,
History’s stinking breath in her face.
The Diet
The diet worked like a dream. No sugar,
salt, dairy, fat, protein, starch or alcohol.
By the end of week one, she was half a stone
shy of ten and shrinking, skipping breakfast,
lunch, dinner, thinner; a fortnight in, she was
eight stone; by the end of the month, she was skin
and bone.
She starved on, stayed in, stared in
the mirror, svelter, slimmer. The last apple
aged in the fruit bowl, untouched. The skimmed milk
soured in the fridge, unsupped. Her skeleton preened
under its tight flesh dress. She was all eyes,
all cheekbones, had guns for hips. Not a stitch
in the wardrobe fitted.
What passed her lips? Air,
water. She was Anorexia’s true daughter, a slip
of a girl, a shadow, dwindling away. One day,
the width of a stick, she started to grow smaller –
child-sized, doll-sized, the height of a thimble.
She sat at her open window and the wind
blew her away.
Seed small, she was out and about,
looking for home. An empty beer bottle rolled
in the gutter. She crawled in, got drunk on the dregs,
started to sing, down, out, nobody’s love. Tiny others
joined in. They raved all night. She woke alone,
head splitting, mouth dry, hungry and cold, and made
for the light.
She found she could fly on the wind,
could breathe, if it rained, underwater. That night,
she went to a hotel bar that she knew and floated into
the barman’s eye. She slept for hours, left at dawn
in a blink, in a wink, drifted away on a breeze.
Minute, she could suit herself from here on in, go
where she pleased.
She stayed near people,
lay in the tent of a nostril like a germ, dwelled
in the caves of an ear. She lived in a tear, swam
clear, moved south to a mouth, kipped in the chap
of a lip. She loved flesh and blood, wallowed
in mud under fingernails, dossed in a fold of fat
on a waist.
But when she squatted the tip of a tongue,
she was gulped, swallowed, sent down the hatch
in a river of wine, bottoms up, cheers, fetched up
in a stomach just before lunch. She crouched
in the lining, hearing the avalanche munch of food,
then it was carrots, peas, courgettes, potatoes,
gravy and meat.
Then it was sweet. Then it was stilton,
roquefort, weisslacker-käse, gex; it was smoked salmon
with scrambled eggs, hot boiled ham, plum flan, frogs’
legs. She knew where she was all right, clambered
onto the greasy breast of a goose, opened wide, then
chomped and chewed and gorged; inside the Fat Woman now,
trying to get out.
The Woman Who Shopped
went out with a silver shilling, willing to buy, bought
an apple, red as first love’s heart, bright as her eye,
had plenty of change, purchased a hat with a brim,
walked with a suitor under its shadow, ditched him;
saved up a pound, a fiver, a tenner, haggled the price
of a dancing dress down to a snip, spent the remainder
on shoes, danced from the house down the street, tapped
to the centre of town where the sales had commenced,
applied for a job for the wage and the bonus, blew it
on clothes; wanted a wedding, a wedding dress, groom,
married him, wanted a honeymoon, went on one,
looked at the gold of her ring as it flashed in the sun;
