i
you are the legend of Hob's Moat
A castle is all boundary.
Here, only the dry moat remains.
A square of dug out earth. The oaks
Have seeded wildly so the notice
Warning against defacement excludes trees.
A grandmother is a legend protected
By moat and motte. How shall we keep you?

iii
who calls you

Endpaper, Scissorsmile, Leatherface,
Filetongue, Veinlady, Spiderheart,
Shadowmother, Otherwhichway,
Theonewhotoldmenotto
Say Again

Greeter, Grider, Grattern, Grusset, Grone,
Grold, Grutter, Gretaphor, Grite,
Gramiscary, Grimmortal, Grash,
Greccessary, Greath,
Say Again

Bedstemoder, Grootmoeder, Oma,
Nagyanya, Großmutter, Avó,
Abuela, Grandmère, Nonna,
Farmor, Mormor, Aana,
Say Again

Greymother, Bloodholder, Winesmile,
Historyshell, Heartroot, Anyway,
Pasteye, Womanbook, Doneitall,
Theonewhotoldmewhatto
Say Again

v
your grandchildren may die before you

Out of an almost empty bottle of Lips
varnish will inch up your nails
which need to be cut by a chiropodist

through their bumps, thick as tabletops.
Side-hairs on the brush will spit
red. He won't be bothered by that,

and won't notice, as he runs to the pool,
a rusted bolt. It will cut his sole
let in staphylococcus aureus.

The following year, it will be cold. In the morning,
light from the blind borders will diffuse
through your room, scattered, but not directly.

Evenly iced air. You will say,
‘Some are January. Their evenings come
early.' Like the time on a train ride

you realise another one is missing
when the sparkling legs of rail step out
behind the carriages on chocks. Passengers

call home, shrug. Outside, ragwort
hangs its many heads, winched by chlorophyll.
Screws and nails are piled between the sleepers.

You are braked not scotched. A broadsheet snaps.
You write: Have you dropped off the earth?
His mother sends a Christmas card, explaining.

 

vii
now you know why thikes fall silent

You suspect thikes know they will die
because of their behaviour toward the dying.
The legendary chattering stops.

The bright yellow fur (a thike is the colour
and size of Yellow Pages) looks
as if combed. The dying thike

is carried on the backs of grandchildren
down the deep, dry moat and up
the near-vertical other side

into the ring of rowan trees.
Surrounded by hellebores, the carriers
crouch, (some small as paperbacks).

The noise of gabbling after death
has misled many to look for language.
The thrill is in sighting untagged mourners.

 

Copyright © Claire Crowther, 2006.

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Claire Crowther's sequence 'The Herebefore' is part of a book-length poem-in-progress. She has received a bursary from Kingston-upon-Thames University to complete this project and submit it for a PhD. Her poems have previously appeared in Shearsman, TLS, Poetry Review, Ambit, PN Review, Poetry Wales, Poetry Salzburg Review and other UK and North American journals. Her pamphlet Glass Harmonica is published by Flarestack.