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The Unreliability of Clouds
There were no clouds where I grew up
for all good fairytales take place in the forest
between the shapeshifting shadows.
When I hear the word for the first time
it is too close to “clout” and “loud”.
I ask my unborn brother what it means,
instantly forgetting his answer.
One day a low cloud catches on a dead tree,
light as a cottonboll, as a wig.
This is the day my mother begins to die,
it takes her a lifetime to do so.
Gradually, I get to know them better.
Now I sleepwalk in the encyclopaedia of clouds –
full of moonshadows and ravens
defecating in the blackness.
I used to dream of being a weathergirl,
envying their power to move clouds
over land and sea.
Sometimes clouds appear like speech-bubbles,
broadcasting my untold thoughts.
I realise that each one is unique as a thumbprint,
though many are clichés.
Some are like sex, rumpled and knowing,
sashaying across the sky with sassy curves;
often they shadow my white clothes in passing
with an unbleachable darkness.
At day’s end the clouds look like bruises,
smell like vanilla.
Sue Burge
Sea Glass
When I lick you, sea glass, you taste of pistachio,
crushed sage. On my palm, grainy as a sugared almond,
you weigh less than a fulmar’s egg, more than a grey feather.
crushed sage. On my palm, grainy as a sugared almond,
you weigh less than a fulmar’s egg, more than a grey feather.
You could be three times older than me, or more,
but I like to think you are the echo of that glass
I smashed when the world was too bitter to swallow.
Sea glass, you hold the answers to unasked questions
in your salty heart. I want to cleave you, hang you
from my ears, catch the chink of your pasts as I turn my head.
Sue Burge