I have deep veins –
pure white, crystal veins
held in a hardness
that was mud, that is stone.
I have been grains –
crushed in dark fire
melted in vastness
made layers, made folds.
I am refined –
yet broken again
ground from a roughness
by oceans, by cold.
I have returned –
a fragment, a stone
somehow a wholeness
a new thing, an old.
I am defined –
through all I have lost
shaped into roundness
for your hand, for your hold.
2012 © Andie Davidson
I’m cooking with onions.
Beneath its brown tissue,
unwrapping, smoothness, naked.
The inner skin is moist, and firm,
its curves reassuring to hold
around, down to the soft root mat.
The raw peeling is a tearing,
unlayering making its acid
reaction to my quick undressing—
or to the intimacy of the edge
that pares and parts and spaces,
destroying dignity for its strong taste.
But the pieces slide in hot virgin
as I ravish the soft sweet heart
pungent and raw and persistent.
I lost those smooth round curves,
the naked skin, moist root mat—
it all lies in pieces, after tears.
And since there are no tissues to hand
and there are no kisses to blend,
I’m cooking with onions. But eating the heart.
2013 © Andie Davidson
Of rain, relentless
memories drumming on my taut skin
running in gurgling rivulets, seeking
deep subterranean places
dark water, far beneath my groundsheet.
A turf-torn guy-rope
relic of a stormy past wound on itself,
spent, forgot, coiled without tension
white as a stripped nerve.
With intent I listen
there is no rhythm in the rain, no
reason or cónfine. I am choosing
storm-surviving, to hear my skin
streaming, streaming, streaming.
2012 © Andie Davidson
When the bearing down begins,
is this courage for the passing through—
or bravery for the inheritance of blood?
Or is it the terror of tearing,
expulsion of not belonging—
the urging to be freed?
And this presence in my belly,
this yearning to contain and hold—
does it not consider pain or wound?
Do not admire the episiotomy
any more than some placental pleasure—
birth is not courage. It’s guts.
2012 © Andie Davidson
Radio carols familiar, smooth
words I cannot sing
a child safe song long lost
still played round and round
my wordless trumpet silent
since the final concert.
Another phlap on the mat
card-hope disappointed
by a Christmas Eve bill
an endless account, year around
filling the void of wordless friends
the list-recipients of my robin.
Tomorrow my son will annoy
his sister with rock and metal
compilations of his Christmas
his mother tolerant, the boyfriend
caught in a new family, the new
Christmas male, a word I cannot think.
Crackers will snap their jest
with an absent author and
a missing humour, an uncrowned
head of table, ambiguous not vacant
filled by silence, the last concert
forgotten as smooth carols.
Robin lost his red breast,
the unfamiliar call to friends
recognised by a few far away
as the fleeting, through-the-window
not-for-Christmas companion
the open bill, the silent carol.
2012 © Andie Davidson