Naomi Wallace for SPRING OFFENSIVE

Last Updated: 1 March 2010 301 views No Comment Posted by: B-Side Empire

I’ve seen you standing on the balcony. The house is gone but you’re still there. Its raining but it not just rain.
Three feet of cable round your neck and the weather still has the last word.

Its always February when things end. Somewhere in the middle
not of winter but of words. Not everything is as it should be.

The snow goes up and the birds come down.
The water won’t come and play
The jets are flying underground.
We feel them shake beneath our feet.

Where is the war? How can they launch when there is snow,
Its just too beautiful in white. You on the balcony with three feet of cable
round your neck. Is it warm up there?

The air is heavy with you.
Come down and see the view. From the ground
its far more grand. The birds are singing in time
with bombs so deep in the ground that they hardly
make a sound and we can sleep and sleep.

We can be safe, the jet stream is underground and passing
through our sleep. That’s not a wound in your chest
that is a kite in the sky and its going higher,
higher, my love.

Everything is as it was.