Vicky WIlson

Leaving home


Ten years on, and I’m leaving you
to the girl with the pierced tongue and pointed shoes.
I’ve watched her size you up,
stroke your mouldings with eager fingers,
lusting for vacant possession.

I hope you remember the parties
better than I do. Time and again
you’ve pulsed to Pink Floyd and David Bowie
breathed deep the spice of bought-in aloo gobi
absorbed more than your share of spilled red wine.
I hope you liked the way Jim and I rocked
the walls that night of the storm,
didn’t suffer too much from passive smoking.

I know your body as well as my own.
I know the exact spot where the condensation pools,
the click and gurgle of waking pipes on winter mornings.

I could have looked after you better.
Stripped bare now, your scars and lines reproach me
in the uncurtained light.




Epiphany


We’ve packed away for another year
strings of ruby beads and silver hearts
crystal globes etched with moons and stars
tassled lanterns from my parents’ tree.

We’ve swaddled in beds of tissue
the painted baby nestling in his walnut shell
gold-speckled eggs bought in Budapest
tinfoil crackers our daughter made at nursery.

The house is naked now and we sit in silence
staring at cracks we thought we’d forgotten.




Biography: Vicky Wilson fell in love with writing poetry while doing a Certificate in Creative Writing module at the University of Kent taught by Lynne Rees. Her poems have been accepted for publication in Equinox, Acumen, The Interpreter's House, Logos, Night Train 2 and the anthology My Mother Threw Knives (Second Light Publications, 2006). In 2005, with Bob Collman, she compiled the anti-war anthology Statement for the Prosecution, which was launched at the Orange Street club and raised over £250 for Amnesty International and CND. Favourite poetry sites: www.poems.com, which posts a different poem each day - a perfect bite-sized reminder that poetry is still there when the rest of life threatens to take over - and www.poetrypf.co.uk, on which you will soon be able to read more of her work.