Stephen Nelson

THE VITAL HEART

Pinned down. The air a heart. Sucking life, meat, marrow. Tiny bones brittle in my palm. Shoulders firm against rock. Vital. A sacrifice of leaves. Expecting deliverance in smoke. We come round to this again. Everything noted.

The children I love - no matter. The women I want. Something in the soil. A system. We generated an atrocity, too long a wait for grace. The offerings rejected, hung in time, folded back. Pins, prods, ancient pebbles.

A show of elegance, ripening process. Or a game, again, against. I never once heard you laugh. Don’t expect another life like this. My meekness prohibits escape. Perhaps I should rail, rally, rush into needles of rain. But the bones in my palm, reforming, ripe for a womb. You told me once I chose this.

CHOOSE THE MOMENT

Soft chambers and bellows for a flame. A voice in the corner of the room. Laughing. I expand to include you. We miss the man who plays the organ - he failed to arrive this morning. Variations in colour, tone and atmosphere as we move between each room. One man dominates the ceremony. I give him place because I love him. We expand to include you.

There may be an unavoidable dilemma. Trickery in the garden. The shadow of your days unaccounted for. Let me present my son, he has just returned from South East Asia. The subtlety of my gesture confounds you.

The rooms are full of trophies and mementoes. Windowless. A barrage of history. Children drag me off - they want to sing for me. Immutable connections. I am new here. What melds us.