Orange Cake
by and published in Edition One of Pomegranate
That afternoon, the sky was heavy and full;
we lay on your bed and pressed our ears flat,
played Chinese Whispers with the walls
as we held our breath to hear my brother and yours
talking metal and history. Your fingers
sketched out grids for noughts and crosses on your sheets, and
our parents’ voices slipped into your room
through cavity air breaths, and the thump of
the central heating coming on made us jump and
crumple like cut marionettes.
Downstairs, your mother boiled oranges
for almond orange cake with marmalade cream;
I heard her crack eggs against the bowl,
that soft waterfall of sugar onto scales –
the air tasted of sweetness and Sundays as
they played Scrabble beneath us:
ELBOW; BICYCLE; XENICUS – you are joking?!
and back up here the wind howled against
your window; rain fell through the frame’s
wooden cracks between scattered letters and
thunder gaps, and when I moved my ragged joints,
my eyes closed over like a doll’s.
We could hear the strike of matches, the sandcastle scrape
of the spade in the coal bucket, and eventually
the smell of cold air thickening was flickering up to us;
blocking out the stars with smoke-stained glass.
The sun began to sink, it drew us in to Blind Man’s Bluff –
something blew against the pane; we didn’t see.
The rain played jazz and blues against the gutter –
I sang it for you; you didn’t know the one –
the water pooled on lamp-lit tarmac and shone flame-gold
like fireworks. We heard glass and piano clinks
drifting up; we could still taste the uneaten citrus
in our mouths as your father spelled out ABACUS and
the dishwasher churned in the kitchen, shook
the whole house. You turned to touch a light
and we caught each other in orange-reds and background noise;
your black wire-wool jumper scratched my skin
as we pulled each other close like toys.
Isobel Norris
Isobel Norris is Welsh, and don’t you forget it, cwtch. She’s read at the Dylan Thomas centre and was specially commended in the Welsh Poetry Competition, and even once wrote a poem about a dead sheep, which is about as Welsh as you can get. She likes running, swimming, cycling, Auden and the word ’fantastic’, and dislikes Yeats and things with gluten in them (because they kill her). (Gluten kills her, not Yeats – Ed.) Izzy lives in Swansea, where the highest-quality rain is.