 | Vicky Wilson Biography:Vicky
Wilson is the Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year 2007-2008. She started to
write poetry in 2003 during a Certificate in Creative Writing course at the
University of Kent and has since had poems published in magazines including Acumen, Brittle Star, Equinox, The Interpreter’s House, Logos, Orbis and South and in
the anthologies Night Train 2, Statement for the Prosecution and My Mother Threw Knives. She has also
written two non-fiction books, Kids’
London (with Jane Lamacraft) and London
Houses: A visitor’s guide. After working for 30 years in book and magazine
publishing she is currently training to become a primary-school teacher. She
lives in Herne Bay. |
Leaving home
Ten years on, and I’m leaving
you
to the girl with the pierced tongue and pointed shoes.
I’ve watched
her size you up,
stroke your mouldings with eager fingers,
lusting for
vacant possession.
I hope you remember the parties
better than I do.
Time and again
you’ve pulsed to Pink Floyd and David Bowie
breathed deep
the spice of bought-in aloo gobi
absorbed more than your share of spilled red
wine.
I hope you liked the way Jim and I rocked
the walls that night of
the storm,
didn’t suffer too much from passive smoking.
I know your
body as well as my own.
I know the exact spot where the condensation
pools,
the click and gurgle of waking pipes on winter mornings.
I
could have looked after you better.
Stripped bare now, your scars and lines
reproach me
in the uncurtained
light.
Epiphany
We’ve packed away
for another year
strings of ruby beads and silver hearts
crystal globes
etched with moons and stars
tassled lanterns from my parents’
tree.
We’ve swaddled in beds of tissue
the painted baby nestling in
his walnut shell
gold-speckled eggs bought in Budapest
tinfoil crackers
our daughter made at nursery.
The house is naked now and we sit in
silence
staring at cracks we thought we’d forgotten.