DANIELLE HOPE 
from THE STONE SHIP

Learning a Language 

I walk to the woodland 
to seek shapes 
in moss stained on trees. 
But there is no tapestry. 
Only bark that is hard 
a trail of straw footsteps 
in the weave of dead leaves 
and sunlight 
a path that disappears. 

I walk to the canal 
to catch words in water 
before they splash over lock 
and drill stone. 
But even if I take a stick 
and trouble the glaze with my name 
ripples remain unintelligible.
A coot swims crooked circles 
under a pulsing bridge. 

Is it that this language is indistinct? 
Or am I blind 
unable to tell line 
from shadow, green from grey? 
Or both? 
Uneasy travellers 
destined to read different alphabets 
draw arrow as sail-boat 
twenty types of twilight 
discerned as one. 

And I walk to the sea 
to look for messages in dunes 
and sea-grass 
but find a tangle of red flowers I cannot identify. 
The sea shuffles 
illegible scatters of sand. 


Providing                

Life assurance 
payable on death 
providing it is swift and from 
a new unexpected illness. 

Mortgage protection plan 
payable for one of twenty ailments 
providing that it is incurable, 
uncomplicated, unrelated to profession, 
psychology, diet, drink or lifestyle, 
or injury, infection, infarct or inflammation, 
is not inherent, dormant, or inborn 
being absent in your siblings, parents, 
grandparents, aunts, cousins, children, 
and is claimed before sixty. 

Nursing home protection cover 
payable for a place in 
one of our deluxe nursing homes – 
providing that there are 
no relatives to care for you, 
no local authority homes, 
you are incapacitated and incompetent 
(but not incontinent) 
your entry is involuntary 
and does not occur before eighty-five. 

Premium waiver indemnity 
payable if your premiums are late 
except in cases of insolvency. 
A benefit may be deducted 
from a previous benefit. 
Persons excluded: fire-eaters, 
ski-instructors, explorers, 
builders, window-cleaners, 
divers, astronauts, 
publicans, poisoners, 
pilots, 
painters, 
poets. 


Application 

Sirs 

Please find enclosed one computer generated 
application 
for a knighthood. I have carefully observed 

your deadline, included as requested a coupon 
from the Sunday Times 
plus supporting statements from six close chums. 

Encourage the panel to forgive 
my signature. 
Not yet sufficiently distinguished. 

But in time I promise to make 
my sur-name 
seem double-barrelled. 

I practise hinting that daddy walked 
grouse moors 
rather than an allotment. 

The idea of window tables in restaurants 
is attractive 
or the inspector on the train agreeing 

the queue was too tedious for me to buy 
a ticket – 
Fat credit at the bank 

no waiting at the doctors’ surgery. 
A smart seat 
at the opera, hot American enthusiasm. 

But it’s not only for these. Honest. It would boost 
your political quota. 
And if your worst objection is tokenism 

I’ll accept being a token. And at least 
no one will ever 
again ask, is it Mrs, Miss or Ms? 


Danielle Hope's previous collections from Rockingham, 
Fairground of Madness (£5.95) and City Fox (£6.95) 
are also available – post-free.


JANE KIRWAN
from THE MAN WHO SOLD MIRRORS

Width of a River

The bridge is delicate yet rooted, silent 
it only sings when wind drifts 
against the metal. There are lights fixed 
to strings that knit 
the steel supports. 

                                Each time 
we meet at different points. 
Certain days the river shivers grey 
and deep, others it’s loud enough 
to drown 
our fumbled greetings. 

You carry shadows of other bridges. 
One I saw when we first met, 
concrete with guard posts. 
There was a solitary figure, 
black sedan speeding, 
an opening car door. 

I fail to ask if you can see 
through the loosely woven slats 
our reflections in the water 
but you are curious, 
proffer the careful questions. 


Without Resolution 

You draw a diagram connecting moon and earth, 
with black ink, score in radiating lines. 
You mark the ratio of circle to diameter 
add some smaller globes, a shadowed sun. 

Disturbingly, you give the moon a blurred circumference 
insist on the beauty of pi, 
                                  confusing me with formulae 
that are fixed and infinite. Certainty has hooks. 

We share a sun and moon. 
We do not share a common speech. 
I do not know your words for wax and wane. 

The lines are hard as arrows to a bull. Planets 
you have strewn like bubbles, balls that shimmer. 
There’s an equation for surface tension 
that says why rainbows so reflected shiver, settle, vanish. 


I Am Consumed with Anger, 
says Mme de Sennones               

(‘Mme De Senonnes’ Ingres 1814) 

You set me in a room 
with ornate mirrors 
on a chaise-longue 
– the couch I had 
when I was young 
is in my father’s attic, 
plush ripped, 
stuffing spilled – 

pose me, spine curved: 
look lazy. 
I ask you to be truthful 
for I’m consumed with anger 

then dream I’m lying on a path, 
my back to the abyss. 
A former lover leaping 
deftly as a goat 
descends and waves then 
disappears. 

You paint the pools 
of perfumed air 
as I store my rage 
in parcels 
plait them into silk, twisting 
the rings on my fingers 
while your brush curves 
down my back. 

You have given me 
the mirror. 
Its filmy space reassures 
my fury safe 
so I can nurse it 
while you fret 
at my pale pulsating 
skin. Tell me to 
stop breathing. 
Those short hot 
waking breaths. 

Jane Kirwan's previous collection, Stealing the Eiffel Tower (£6.95), 
is also available from Rockingham – post-free.