Skies: A Poem-Sequence

1. Birds

Crows’ wings beat the dawn
like drums and clouds scatter
in the tribal red air of morning.

Ali and I walk into the sound
and colour of more birds
than the sky could ever hold.

Birds in streets, under eaves,
hanging like linen, claws clipped
to wire, beaks earthward –

or are we upside down?
Sudden bats in daytime,
misplaced.

2. Ivory Bowl

Hawks etch the sky like hieroglyphics,
the sky that is coloured ivory and traps
me as an ant beneath a bowl. I run
the circumference of the world; where
do I jump? Ali says birds have sharp beaks
so they can peck out of the hard skull
of clouds. They understand cage limits
because they are close to the bars.
Now a hawk falls on our roof;
its claws are bloody and torn.
Pebbles escape its talon-grip.
Early morning I look for the attacker.
Nothing above but a nest of black
twigs against the plaque sky – cracks
in the ivory bowl, I wonder.

3. Once I Woke Up At Dawn

The sun rose like dim steam out of a geyser.
I thought I was in Tawang,
where I had mistaken beetles for berries,
when I was ten and near China and the flowers
looked strange.

Ali took a picture of the sky,
so that I could remember.
The crows looked like scarabs
in the amber-coloured everything
of dawn.

But Tawang was in the mountains,
and no crows lived there.

Three Women: A Poem-Sequence

1. Waiting

How many snakes and lizards shed their skins
For time to be passing on like this,
– Vetiver, John Ashbery

The room grows
whiter, more angular – a jaw
hardening.

Afternoon light enters
as a gust of yellow pollen.
Where is he?

Maria’s face toughens
as if in cold weather,
obtains the colour of varnish.

Now he is home,
and Maria is hollowed-out,
dead oak – furniture.

2. The Woman

Wires run taut above the city, slipping into the night
camouflage as a woman into her bed of many lovers –
you can hardly see her, unless
a leg splays out – a fray.

You wait until the sky acnes
red the next day, and there she is:
by the telephone: her neck chained
with sweat or dew.

3. Mrs. Tiwary

After years, she is at the sink,
peeling potatoes. No more
is she Mrs Tiwary, socialite,
wife, mother – only woman,
who has cut her finger,
and is watching a field of poppies
expanding, as if from an airplane,
about to land.