…….
Wolfskin
…….
The hair of my head is red and a long as your arm.
My unbraided plaits fly in the offshore wind like a bird pining after distances.
I stand on the yellow cliff.
You look up, a mile away, and see me,
And you know me by the colour of my hair and by my wolf skin cloak.
And I am glad I have a spell on you.
Glad that I have a powerful charm wrapped in parchment and buried under the threshold.
And that every night you are compelled to stoop and enter by the door.
Then the wolf skin becomes a bed.
You are a strong man, with a strong odour which becomes you well.
And I am glad to dig my nails into your flesh, leaving my mark on you.
And I am glad to know that when the next moon grows fat
I shall hold at my breast the male-child you desire.
Or,
If the tides of luck run against me,
I shall lie in my narrow grave, the charm still buried by the door,
And you,
Weeping.
…….
Cheri
…….
Cheri,
Close the rose pink drapes and let us bathe
Named and rosy laced and linked, soon.
Close out the dusty Parisian noon, and battle
Cloven and unclothed like newborn twins
A string of languid pearls my only garnish
Large roseywhite and shining like the two they mimic
Pressed to your untarnished childsoft skin,
Possessed by your soft moustache, like the child denied me.
Your limbs so light upon me, I wear love lightly,
I have saved the best till last.
…….
Now at my zenith, yet the cynic says
Soon the full blown rose will shrivel frosty
While you, my dove, will still be green and juicy.
But, remember, love's compulsion has stamped
An indelible print on your soul,
And you will always go searching in vain for me,
For the goddess I once was,
Cheri.
…….
Earthrise
…….
Day 1.
Earthrise on a dead planet.
Pregnant opal earth of blulegreensilver ice.
Always unlucky as opal, llike tearfilled eyes.
Earthrise shoving aside the black void.
…….
Day 2.
My man wears the silver suit of deep space,
While I, space concubine, scientific adviser,
While I sit counting,
While I sit computing, collating, the gamma rays,
The days of the moon, the days since his starship departure.
…….
Day 3.
And as I count, I count the dead faces of my lovers,
Sucked into the black hole of memory,
Passing the window like holograms,
Like mermen of horrible whiteness, of waterlogged decay, of floating bloated putrescence.
The waterlogged mermen, plus the tearful earth
Equals = the wrong days of the moon.
…….
Day 4.
During the geometry of freefall love in zero gravity,
Each amorous thrust shifts us father apart into separate orbits.
He once had a satellite wife, who died.
And I think even she retains more of him than I.
…….
1981
Mary Argent copyright