September in Ladbroke Grove:
A Portrait

My Name is Easy
to Pronounce

Persephone

Pinioned between my will and my words
and my lack of words, I stutter
up Ladbroke Grove, dishevelled on the inside. And
following an old calendar
I watch kids jostling towards
the new term, already loosening ties
I'm going to my own hard lesson
in your dove grey room

Your words vine around the curtains
and hang in the maze of the Persian rug
on the wall
it's here that I trace the map of the world
for you as I see it
marking out its tight geography
with all the wrong questions

How long will this last? I whisper
You seem not to answer me over days over months
and I am out of sorts, an alien sojourner
in this small room

You show me shadows and underground
passages, always turning back
to see that I'm still here, saying
'Remember what you have forgotten'

And then September five years later
the voices of the Portobello traders
rising, I buy a postcard in the newsagent
by the library and drop it through your door
to say hello and remember me to myself.

My name is easy to pronounce
but another slipped into your mouth
as easy as feet into bedroom pumps
Was it the vastness of vowels
and all their openness -
no consonants to break the fall
as words and names drop from the sky.

When I called across continents
to cut the air around you
was it the crackle on the line
that put the staccato breath-catch
in your voice and my ear?
Eight thousand miles of silence -
not enough so you'd notice
but in that small space
all meaning melted.

My name is easy to pronounce
but in your mouth it is adrift
clinging to clauses and unuttered debris
cut loose between here and the next
revolution of a satellite.
And was it the elision of 'n' to 'm'
(so close, long distance)
that I needed to believe -
perhaps I have an ear
for the mythic mistake

Damp earth crumbles above me; your footfall
Ripples through me, softly seismic and all
My dark world of caves and cool corners
Trembles with the sighs of ghosts and mourners.
Persephone, pomegranate, wide-eyed
Girl of the upper world, honey-thighed
Bring your step this way, see the earth open
Like your flowers, to draw you down again.
Let your mother curse me and call your name
Let her wander the earth and blame
Where she will: Demeter, where's your virgin daughter?
Look - she comes in light and love and laughter.
Come closer, closer, my lovely love
I can feel your breath - do you feel mine?