Buttons

Monsoon lightning

Rips the dark sky like tin.

We quietly sort: Pearl, Diamante,

Jet as black as sin.

In the dry season -

Shops a hundred miles away

Buttons make playthings

As heat flies from the day.

Through twelve shady houses,

Twelve verandas and plots

Under a hibiscus tree

Mother pleats and smocks - 

Remembers make do and mend:

Blankets kilts, tea-towel tops,

Dresses of parachute silk.

Memory works Open/Shut, like a fan -

We saved that box of buttons

A touchstone in dementia sand.

Twelve Houses furnished and gone.

Now, a nurse tests for buttons

You know the 'thing' is round.

'With b?' you say, 'not a belt!'

The sugared silence is profound.

© Wendy Vacani

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Blanket Ban

Girls in pearls are, oh, so sure

They gather berries, heather.

Lay soft blankets on the moor -

My darling cannot share.

Stick glossy feathers in their hair

And climb the ragged rocks,

Find the bird's nests, oh, so rare,

Ignore 'her' like a pock.

Oh My Darling, Daughter of Mine,

I'll find you tendrils of vetch -

Skeins so fine, to sew your eyes,

So you'll no longer fret.

Clasp this stem of curling fern -

Lie along its measure,

'Til it uncoils and straightens you,

Gives you strength to treasure.

Take the sap of the bluebell flower

To still your wilder blood.

Listen for all its bells to ring,

When you walk from the mud.

Choose your dock leaves carefully,

And walk the land so fair.

Tell those girls on your wedding day:

'To my trousseau do not give.

I've won my wedding squares!'

© Wendy Vacani

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Paralysis

Evening after evening

she presses the hydraulics, turning the bed

in the shuttered room.

And each evening

in a Monet-style kitchen

salad leaves are chopped

in the proper way with a Moulis.

Honey added to the Dijon.

Guests note, climbing the stairs:

cut glass, pressed linen,

stencilled vine leaves.

Madame answers questions on:

the family's way of life - golf in the afternoon

and after three days

she speaks of her daughter,

who crashed her car coming home

bearing a trophy.

Paralysis in the other room.

Madame writes to the son in Australia:

we've had plenty of guests this summer.

The jasmine you planted is growing -

I think she catches its perfume under the window.

She still can't speak.

Your father, like a fool,

is building her a pool,

so, in the cool,

she'll glide

like a water-lily.

© Wendy Vacani

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Heather

Ram hands through sky - it's blue enough,

touch expansively purple Heather,

and snap the rooted undertow

that twists like leather. Larks explode

like fountains - picture sirens

shooting their sound. Unconcerned.

Rafaella gathers her mood board,

But watch, the clouds are blowing over

Dew shakes inside a tissue grain.

Can she hear the old refrain?
Always Leave Nature Untamed.

© Wendy Vacani

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Temptation

We walk our road: Rosetti's 'Uphill all the Way'
Or Frost's 'The Road Not Taken'.
Directionless.
No end point glows.
Yet, the sky chisels out our silhouettes,
Keeps us upright, unforsaken.

At our feet, Temptation lies like Mica sparkling -
Layered with consequence.
Kneel to touch?

You'll get dust on your fingers...

© Wendy Vacani

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Anniversary

After twenty-five long years
In dark Medieval forests,
Neighbours crowned wives
With silver wreaths,
As Death within those years
Had been truly vanquished.

Today, wreaths have vanished
And rainbows resist moulding,
Now shops tout china for twenty years
Modern Appliances for four!

Can mankind
Glory in a steam-iron
Medusa cables trailing?

© Wendy Vacani

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Regret

Neither Jealousy, hunched in a ditch,

Scrutinising that face,

Nor Envy in high branches,

Downwards-looking, quantifying that.

No one sets Regret clattering,

Yet, like a star, it burns more brightly,

The instant 'what might have been'

Is expelled from the sky.

Like Etruscan ancients we trawl the past

Mapping the flashes of our stars.

© Wendy Vacani

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Paradise

The playground mothers were never content. When it was windy, they folded their arms crying, 'That teacher expects too much.' Tony's mother was new, so she would be the devil if she disagreed, but with news of the papier-mâché project she took her son's hand and hoped things would improve. Tony's rigid thinking had seen off the father.

On Sunday, Tony's mother inspected the finished model, 'Which country?'

'Paradise,' Tony said, 'I need milk and honey for the river.'

Wendy Vacani

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Photographs

Studio-still in a cardboard moon,
Making a keepsake for his pocket -
A ploy against bayonets.

Oh! To perfume his image,
Paste his face in a locket,
But she is not 'his'.

Over the threshold,
She says: 'Stop Our Will being shot,'
Handing the photograph to her mother,
For her brother's pocket, instead.

Wendy Vacani

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