2 poems by Helen Dunmore
Hold Out Your Arms
Death, hold out your arms for me
Embrace me
Give me your motherly caress,
Through all this suffering
You have not forgotten me.
You are the bearded iris that bakes its rhizomes
Beside the wall,
Your scent flushes with loveliness,
Sherbet, pure iris
Lovely and intricate.
I am the child who stands by the wall
Not much taller than the iris.
The sun covers me
The day waits for me
In my funny dress.
Death, you heap into my arms
A basket of unripe damsons
Red crisscross straps that button behind me.
I don’t know about school,
My knowledge is for papery bud covers
Tall stems and brown
Bees touching here and there, delicately
Before a swerve to the sun.
Death stoops over me
Her long skirts slide,
She knows I am shy.
Even the puffed sleeves on my white blouse
Embarrass me,
She will pick me up and hold me
So no one can see me,
I will scrub my hair into hers.
There, the iris increases
Note by note
As the wall gives back heat.
Death, there’s no need to ask:
A mother will always lift a child
As a rhizome
Must lift up a flower
So you settle me
My arms twining,
Thighs gripping your hips
Where the swell of you is.
As you push back my hair
– Which could do with a comb
But never mind –
You murmur
‘We’re nearly there.’
To My Nine-Year-Old Self You must forgive me. Don’t look so surprised,
perplexed, and eager to be gone,
balancing on your hands or on the tightrope.
You would rather run than walk, rather climb than run
rather leap from a height than anything.
I have spoiled this body we once shared.
Look at the scars, and watch the way I move,
careful of a bad back or a bruised foot.
Do you remember how, three minutes after waking
we’d jump straight out of the ground floor window
into the summer morning?
That dream we had, no doubt it’s as fresh in your mind
as the white paper to write it on.
We made a start, but something else came up –
a baby vole, or a bag of sherbet lemons –
and besides, that summer of ambition
created an ice-lolly factory, a wasp trap
and a den by the cesspit.
I’d like to say that we could be friends
but the truth is we have nothing in common
beyond a few shared years. I won’t keep you then.
Time to pick rosehips for tuppence a pound,
time to hide down scared lanes
from men in cars after girl-children,
or to lunge out over the water
on a rope that swings from that tree
long buried in housing –
but no, I shan’t cloud your morning. God knows
I have fears enough for us both –
I leave you in an ecstasy of concentration
slowly peeling a ripe scab from your knee
to taste it on your tongue. Art by Michael Pontieri
Recommended listening: Rodrigo Amarante: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
Links of the Day: Imagination: Tom Wallisch Rope Art Installations A series of Kashmir landscapes made on Chinar leaves from Kashmir