Jordan Roberts
The waves.
They’re doing that thing again.
Going, coming, going,
like tinnitus.
The rain a perpetual mist
chattering, pattering
just above the ground.
A child will pull from
parents’ grip, gulls scream
as they scatter, wings ricochet
through the dropping water
and call reports of which bin
has the best throw-away-chips.
It’s just constant noise
and I’ve probably lost my mind already.
People think living by the sea is a relaxing affair.
The older generation come to retire,
but the pull and push,
the constant whoosh-whoosh,
if I didn’t have children myself,
I’d close-up shop and jump right off the pier.
The rain is picking up again,
no one’s buying ice cream today.
Ice Cream Van Man
I saw an asteroid field once,
through the tiny window in my quarters,
floating aimlessly, like us.
Nnoli sleeps, condensed oblivion.
Everyone else too, asleep:
The gears turn
and my arm moves to brush her skin.
Missing flesh can’t feel it
but I know she’s warm.
She slaved over iron, copper and steel
so that I could think and feel.
I wonder if she expected
someone else.
I sit with her sometimes, soft breathing,
the beating of her mortality.
Her hair as messy as the day we met.
Nnoli and I
in the Cosmos
I pretend to fall asleep in front of the telly,
used to do it all the time. Feet bare
and nightie pink. The one you insist I wear.
You call my name gently
and cradle me up the stairs.
Years later I wrote ‘I hate you’ on the walls
of the room you painted yellow. You pushed
me out the front door,
still in pink nightie you insisted I wore.
Hold my hand tightly
I am still the child you bore.
I out grew the little boy forced to wear pink nighties.
I outgrew sleeping in pyjamas,
but I put myself to bed now.
Sleeps in
Pyjamas
Days are naked now,
Blurred between smoking tulips
and nights spend in drink.
I wake up in morning silk
Craving the grip of your hands.
My days, too, bleed in;
every sound is too purple
and tulips don’t sing.
Is silk softer on your skin
than my hands around your neck?