Christopher’s Wren
by and published in Edition Three of Pomegranate
I shiver at the kitchen window, watching Christopher
as he works the garden. A dim figure
in the dusk, he ducks in and out
of the steamy greenhouse, flexing his hands
over the heaters. I remember the time
we slept in there – drunk, and locked out, lying
on concrete under glass and sky. His tall marijuana
hid among the tomato plants, and we were sleepless.
I blanch the window with breath. He throws a match
onto a mound of leaf-mould, and the lawn
stutters with sparks, then smoulders. Back-lit by this bonfire,
he muddies the path to the door, arrives – boots
and everything. He holds out a skinny hand, black – dirt in the creases from hours of splitting soil,
sowing, stirring the earth like dough. Look.
It falls in my palm – a smooth, white skull, the size of
a matchbox, once a bird. Christopher blows silt from the sockets,
and it sings, an ocarina. He leaves, to tend to something
still alive – amyrillis, snapdragon – this man my mother
is right to disapprove of. The leaves on his fire sigh
into smoke, then nothing; dusk settles. I let the skull fall,
smash, soundless on the tile, and see him shudder.
As if he’d listened for it, heard. As if he felt.
Claire Askew
Claire Askew is 21 and a final-year MA English Lit student at the University of Edinburgh. Her poetry has appeared in NewLeaf, Open Wide and Brittle Star, and she was Poet in Residence for Poet’s Letter magazine during the months of January and February 2007. A selection of her poetry is soon to appear in The Edinburgh Review, and she has also published a small-scale pamphlet, Type Dreams (June 07), with the Forest Free Press. She was recently awarded the Sloane Prize 2008 and the Grierson Prize 2008. Claire is the editor-in-chief of Read This magazine, which aims to provide a platform for new, young and emerging writers to showcase their work. She is inspired by Edinburgh, Beat writing, Edwin Morgan and the early recordings of Tom Waits.