Poetry Forum

Just the one poem now...

***

She scribbled it quick on a blank sheet
from the back of her current book –
it was that, I suppose, or a serviette
from the paper bag of food.
I’m glad she chose the book:
we used to save napkins
for sketching our dream homes on,
for saying ‘never goodbye’.

The hand was shaky. Blame it on nerves or uneven track.

She said:

… such choices seem sudden but people don’t know,
they don’t always see the second skin split…

… a family in the seats across the aisle:
Daddy returns with their favourite drinks,
he knows them like his own best jokes;
Mummy teaches teens to bluff at cards
and they’re already very good at it;
Baby’s asleep on the table,
next to the Fanta...

… think they’re going to the New Forest,
that lodge near the golf club…

… we had a wonderful fuck there,
but they don’t know that, and nor did you…

… everything – almost – I wanted,
but you don’t, not with me,
stuck in this quiet car…

And

… not with you.

Hello,

I liked the feel of this, got carried along with the story.

Sometimes the rythmn of it felt a bit off though - like in the first stanza, you'd set up the rythmn nicely but then it seemed to jar in the break from 'from the paper bag of food' to the next line. I wasn't sure what 'second skin split' meant?

A good read though, I liked it.