I try to buy thoughtful presents.
When people express preferences
I remember them. Sometimes yes
I go over the top because I like to give.
People may find this extravagant
and alarming. I do not mean it.
If I had to correct your pronunciation
I would find a joking way to do it.
You would barely notice it.
Or I would incorporate the word
into a sentence of my own, correctly,
and leave it up to you.
I try to bring people in from the sidelines.
Animals tend to like me.
Once a blind dog nosed my thigh
and rested the length of its jaw in my palm.
I can tolerate long stretches alone.
I think there is strength in kindness.
If ever you are shivering, I will give you my coat.
I will push my coat around your juddering shoulders
and I will kiss your hands.
I will hold your hands in my hands.
I do not want to let them go.
Author: Justin
Something Like This
I don’t know what love is
but perhaps
it is something like this:
When she
comes home from abroad
and tells me proudly: ‘I saw
a squirrel
and some daffodils
and a tree, just like the ones we saw
in the park
that day’
and I remember these words
when I wake up in the night
and next day at my work
and I long
to hear her say
the same words once more
and for her
to look exactly the same
with the same smile
and the same brightness in her eyes
as when she said them –
I think that is maybe love
or something rather like it
When Did It Happen?
When did it happen?
‘It was a while ago’.
Where did it happen?
‘It was not far’.
No, tell. Where did it happen?
‘In my heart’.
What is your heart doing now?
‘Remembering. Remembering’.
How To Be A Man
Scene 1
too young to know anything of death
get sent upstairs when someone
knocks on the door on a Saturday
Scene 2
too young to come back down until you’re told eavesdrop
auntie are you sure you’re OK?
dad I’m fine
Scene 3
see your dad return from hospital after overdosing
the kind of overdosing where the body forgets itself slowly
how to walk how to speak how to swallow
Scene 4
watch your sister hugging the would-be futurefather of her child
go to the other room computer television
a comedy impressions show and a joke
about someone’s stature
laugh harder than you should have or wanted to
Scene 5
go back to the front room
recount the joke about stature to the seated family
dad I know we heard are you OK?
say you’re fine
see your dad’s face like an empty box
Background character notes
you thought you knew how men
were meant to grieve
you thought all men were punished by their fathers
you thought all men grieved like small Greek women
in black who say the bread still needs to be baked
you thought men simpy carried on
when your dad unfolded in front of you
nobody had taught you how to fix him back together
and then he died
Now is the Time
a year has passed
and now is the time for burning, again
Finally
a day will come when
woken by the xylophone
of sunthroughblinds
you’ll realise
that the beach was not the place
where horses tore the sand
to ribbon
that the scent of her has lifted
from the last of the sheets
that she isn’t coming back
and that you don’t want her to
that it hasn’t rained
but the birds are pretending that it has
so they can sing
Slam
isn’t this how the best of it should be?
or the worst?
taking the body to the point at which
it almost breaks and then returning
having had your faith restored
in the miraculous fragility
of the self
the morning we almost ended
it was your sobbing brought me back
after the endless smashing of glass
we talked ourselves together
and the next day still wearing the mark of your hand
on my chest as you slammed me to the bed I found I was struggling
to swallow every mouthful
was a labour I became aware
of the mechanics of my own body
could feel parts of myself that would
usually go unnoticed
after your hand had slammed into my chest
I learnt the pain in possessing
capacities that are never
quite fulfilled almost being broken
almost leaving but deciding
to tough it out
until it broke
memoryhouse 