The winner of our 2001 poetry contest.
You are a woman who lusts after pink lilies,
the open mouths of inlets
blurred by mist.
Nothing is ever simple.
A man who says he loves his wife
but runs his hands over you.
You stamp and shiver,
steam like a horse in rain.
You are a woman who in the midst of moving
almost buys a pot of poppies,
fringed and pink as a velvet shawl.
You try not to let men too close;
those who fall through some loop
of politeness, lodge in affection
for years, hurt like splinters.
You prefer the cold blue beckonings
of salt-water channels to the warm mouth of a man
who belongs to another.
You are a woman who surrounds herself
with flowers and fresh-baked cookies
as if domesticity could fence out passion.
Long ago the tide spat you out, broken.
You re-formed as an anemone,
muscular and stinging,
though every cell cries out for the slow
tidal charity of salt.
Made new, you look for a singularity,
some place where rock meets water
and gets fertile: you could incite a riot
of poppies, a hunger of hot lilies.
You want a man who can touch you like a colour.
Islands fascinate, and gardens,
how they are made and pass to others;
the deep startle certain pinks create
when you encounter them, swaying.
