Annie Clarkson

Frida

She lies on a bed of stones, bruised by feathers, worn by the turning of clock hands. Her forehead is creased with troubled sleep, her mouth twitching the beginning of words. She’s dreaming. Maybe of crumbling buildings or white rooms with no doors, or beds without pillows. She never remembers the details, wakes with tension in her neck, a crowded head.

She drinks tequila for breakfast in tiny shot glasses, wipes sweat from her face, and waits for her husband to bring home beads for her neck, a poem, a blood orange. He is gone a long time. She unwraps ornaments from newspaper, curls her hair in rags, pinches her cheeks to give them colour. She wishes she could split one half of her from the other – sit in out-of-town bars, soak her skin in alcohol, lie with men who have coarse stubble and rough hands. She would wrap herself in their sweat, see if her husband noticed.

Instead she rubs her skin with lychees, lets her curls tumble onto her shoulders and waits barefoot. He comes home tired, but drawn to her. He kisses her cheek then pulls back, with questions on his lips. He tells her she tastes of lost summers and a trip to the beach once when they were first lovers.

These things happened

walked like a woman with broken heels across pavements

bags trailing with open zips, hair splitting with braids

scuff-eyed and frozen with bruises rich as honey

with hands grazed along knuckles from punching drunk

on the backs of garages when you weren’t watching

when you were busy with your lips on a cold neck

a shoulder, a face almost pinned to your collar

my skin scraped blue and without thought or reason

to confront you I became the colour of rain

stole leaves from sycamore trees

ripped them from branches and rubbed them like balm

into my cuts, into the dark nettle of these sores

until they stung like wasps and scarred my bones

they were friends these bandage and ointment days

they were winter lovers I held against my skin

under horsehair blankets, under mohair,

under wool nights and I became a green song

later, washed in the ice and mud of puddles

scrubbed elbow to toe with pumice

and stones picked from disused quarries

leaving myself nine times at the edge

when you weren’t watching

when you were sleeping

I became hard as gravel

last night

Last night, a helicopter sliced up the air with machete blades, chasing stolen cars. Its noise angry, circling away then back again. I didn’t hear the screech of tyres as I sometimes do. It was almost midnight. The noise cut into my sleep, it unsettled me.

Last night, I jemmied the window of a car, snapped the steering lock. I turned a screwdriver in the cap. It didn't start, but I remember driving it.

Last night, I had a gun to my head. I recognised the man with his finger on the trigger. He pulled it and click. No bullet.

This morning I woke to a black feather on my pillow, the quill cut my fingers when I touched it. I woke with one blink of my eyes like something had startled me, a moth behind the curtains maybe, a noise, the flap of wings or a memory.

Salt and vinegar passions

Saturday love on the brink

of ruining me, wanting more

than a kiss in the bus shelter, more

than a fumble in a back seat:

chaos and casual lies,

drunk wrestling in a party of coats

twists and tangles of hair

and fingers and feet;

nights wrapped up

in lager-stained kisses

the scratching of each other’s scars

in early hours back streets;

that slow rub into Sunday mornings

dawn pulling on eyelids,

life sliding into a cycle

of chip paper imprints.

Dovecote

The air heaves with the stench of moulted feathers. Hundreds of pigeons flap, over a thousand maybe, their wings beating against stone. The cooing nearly deafens me. It means I can’t listen out for horseshoes clatting against the cobbles, or hear the scratch of rats in the yard, or squabs chirping in their nesting boxes or the sound of my voice talking out loud, as I often do when I clear out the nests.

I like being in here, crouching under the lintel into the dark enclosed cote. It’s like stepping inside myself. I climb the plinth steps, fix the ladder against the curved wall, and reach into the stone nesting holes to collect eggs or squabs or to shovel out droppings, whatever job it is I'm doing today. Their feathers ruffle, they can be rough sometimes. But I don't mind my hands being pecked, their beaks nicking my skin. I'm gentle with them, holding their wings, body and all so I can stroke their heads. They like the massage of my thumb. They’re untrusting, these pigeons, but they soon stop struggling and I feel the burr of their beating hearts, the hot tremble of their bodies.

The rector follows me down to the cottage, knocks on my door in that soft-knuckled way of his. He brings salted butter from the dairy, a book he wants to read to me, or some other thing. He brings me these gifts, excuses they are, and I offer him a cup of tea, a bite of bread. The loaf is wrapped in cloth to keep it fresh from weevils; they get in everything if I'm not careful.

He’s pale-skinned this rector, a book man, but as much a man as any other. Only more afraid of it. I have to lift my skirts, lick my hand to make myself wet for him. He’s not one for touching me beforehand, doesn’t like me to look at him either. I lean against the table or press my hands down onto the seat of a chair while he takes me from behind. Holding my hips, never rough, only apologetic. I feel his little trembles, the way he tries to hold it all in, and I wish he would let go more for both our sakes.

He wipes himself on a handkerchief after and doesn’t look at me. I want to hold him to my breasts, want him to stroke and kiss me. His wetness slides from between my legs, reminding me how it felt when I was loved once.

I sit in the cobbled yard with a cage of panicking birds. Axe sharpened against the whetstone, woodblock stained with years of pigeon blood. My husband used to do the culling, but it’s down to me now. I take a bird from the cage, feeling it quiver in my hands. I whisper words of regret, stroke its head with my thumb, then do it quickly. Lay its head on the block and sever it with one blow. I flinch with each thud of the axe. But still I hold the bird firm in my hand to stop it twitching, spraying me with its blood.