Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 4, Number 2. November 2021. ISSN: 2581-7094
Coming Up For Air
--- Alana Kelsall
he takes his earthmoving
equipment
into the valley to cut
a bend in the river
the perfume of roses and
blossoms
drifts across backyards
I have clipped a small
house around me
a lock on the river
boxes of notes are
stacked in the cupboard
fear has its own room
think of it
as a bulging pocket in
the river
the muscles of
childbirth stopped
I fell smack
onto this slab of my
being
attachments slipped
through the trapdoor
bobbing away downriver
swaying from the stem of
a tap
a bucket of sunlight
overcome with
smiles a baby
scooping it up
no banks to this river
through glass doors
down to the basement
I join a line of cars
penned up
my eyes unguarded
in the rear-view
hauling at the river
Tracking the Weather
--- Alana Kelsall
I can’t extract myself
from the glue of housekeeping
the fridge makes a low
hum into the night
a bird call early
morning I’ve never heard before
the scales can’t show
the shifting tides I carry
the car broke
down stayed for days parked out the front
unpacking arguments I
move around the yard
the distribution of
weight is at the end of a sentence
things I could say but
don’t
I take the clothes out
of the washing machine in the order
I’m
going to put them on the line
a fig tree hangs over a
wall flapping its leaves
driving in convoy with
my youngest down Brunswick Road
I
wave in the rearview
the signposts don’t tell
me where I want to go
something bad is about
to happen it’s in my hands
sudden rain the
heaviness of my hair
Breath Separates Us
--- Alana Kelsall
vapour trails unfurl
across the sky
almost
transparent the moon’s outline hanging
I tell myself there is
no outside or inside
a breath separates us
cars banked up at the
intersection
pedestrians in colourful
masks
our confinements from
each other
a woolly dog snuffles
round the base of a tree
till pulled onwards
is this the day that I
sweep up the paths into
one visible track
portrait of grandparents
(standing)
in their Sunday best
what were their eyes
drawn to day after day
Mum’s
brother (their son) on leave during the war
his eyes so like hers
under his pilot’s cap
followed her move from
country house
into the nearby town
his photo on a stool
facing her
my older sister and
I teenagers on the beach
there in
front of me
a fierce sun draining
the colour
from the sea
the casual way she
relaxed back
on one
arm sure and not
sure of herself
the sun low and sharp in
the sky
with this drawing in of
winter
the river moves on
underground
it’s a shape I can live
with