When He Comes Home

[ElleW]

He returns to the forest from city jobs,
his broad hands roughened from long hours
counted in hammer blows and saw cuts.

Sometimes he stops and brings her mum –
partly because he knows how the distance,
the missing, stings these two – but mainly

to ease his way back home from hotel bars
and easy blondes. The transition always
jars him, sends a familiar jolt of guilt

along the back of his neck, makes him
want a stiff shot of whiskey, or a shower.
But then her drift of long dark hair

across his chest and the dampening
smell of her as she nuzzles his ear, traces
his lips, produce a rush of lust-laced

devotion, and he spans her breast, wide
hands working her, building her like
a truss, taking them both soaring high

into the treetops where a breeze sings
of forgetfulness, where a star shoots
across the sky, flashing in a lonely arc.

[ccvulture]

Some thorts, L:

1. "He returns to the forest from city jobs,
his broad hands roughened from long hours
counted in hammer blows and saw cuts."

Urban labourer, or mafioso?

2. "traces his lips" feels like a literary cliche.

3. "building her like a truss"... I'm thikk and I don't understand this phrase!

Regs

Stuart

[Elphin]

Elle
There are some elements to this that are making it difficult for me to get in to the piece. They are not necessarily inconsistencies but my interpretations cause them to be so. See what you think.

He is coming home from city jobs to the forest. Describing a job as in the city, suggests to me the Financial markets - stocks and shares, banks and so on therefore the image is desk work/computers etc and I find it jarring to the image of hammer blows and saw cuts.

The bringing home mum stanza is an awkward image. I think its a neat idea that he has to ease the transition but by bringing home her mum is stretching it. Also what does mum do with herself in the later stanzas - she might feel a bit awkward!!

Wide hands working her is a horrible image - I know what you are getting at and I'm not saying it couldn't belong but does it gel with the tenderness that follows in the next lines?

A truss to me is a triangular support in building work or a medical device for supporting a hernia - either way the simile is a struggle for me.

You know on re-read there are elements of what could be a country song lyric in this, I don't mean that in any derogatory way.

Maybe I have just put the wrong spin on some of the words and images - see what others think.

Elphin

[dillingworth]

i think the logic of the first stanza is a little confused. if he's returning to the forest from a city job, why should his hands bear the signs of rough work? of course he's been in the forest before so his hands would probably still bear the marks but as a start to the poem it's a little confusing.

the rest works nicely for me - though "produce" should be "produces" for the long last sentence to make sense, i think.

[ElleW]

Hi Stu, Elphin and dillingworth,

Point very well taken on S1!

Thanks so much for reading and commenting on this poem that I felt was a bit wide of the mark. Back to the rewrite file (where I separate poems as to the good, the bad and the ugly)!

Thanks letting me know where the poem falls down. I'll work on it.

Best,
Elle