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darling.
     
    She threw herself into the rituals.
    Manned the tills for bed and victuals.
    Worked like she was born to work
    And soon she felt, as we all feel,
    That if it’s happened, then it’s real.
     
    What a body’s for in times like these
    Is yours to guess or know.
    Her body was a new and ancient rite
    She felt her wanting grow.
    But could not reconcile her wants
    With what she knew she was.
    She let herself be touched
    But not for pleasure. Just because.
     
    New flesh for old,
    She learned her limits and controlled
    Her deepest fidgets.
    She sought wealth to lift her up.
    Could not rest with feeling stuck.
    Getting by is fine for some
    But she was after better luck.
     
    Sitting in the finest winebars
    Sipping from a shining wineglass
    She remembers ancient times
    When she was young, a boy who climbed
    On top of girls to feel them grind.
    And how she fought so she could find
    Herself top boy. Those days, divine.
    All tough and raw and caked in grime.
     
    Those days are in her, howling still,
    Yes, she’s calm and humble now,
    But that dark music, wild and shrill
    Still plays each time the night comes down.
     
    Those days still follow her around
    Stagger leering through the streets
    Growling at her, gaining ground,
    While she unwraps the posh pink sweets
    From suitors who mistake her charms
    For something strange they’d like for theirs.
    Those simpletons who think they dance
    A step that no one else has shared.
     
    Her body smarts, she grits her teeth,
    How many of us must we be?
    She knows that she is full of something
    New and foul and deep and free.
     
    The boy in her is strong some days
    And calls out for a girl to touch
    The girl in her is full of rage
    And craves the things she hates so much.
     
    She must be more than sex and body?
    Sex and body’s all she’s got.
    Like all hard lessons, learn it softly.
    It only is until it’s not.

Manhood
     
     
     
    T IRESIAS : All men make mistakes, it is only human.
               But once the wrong is done, a man
               Can turn his back on folly
     
    – Sophocles, Antigone

The man Tiresias
    It came out of nowhere.
    All teeth and tussle.
    Shouting like huge crowds behind him.
     
    It stamped on his bones.
    It shovelled his muscle.
    Alone in a clearing where no one would find him.
     
    He writhed in its jaws:
    his lovers flashed past him.
    The routine, the dinners, the dishes.
     
    He felt the dense forest
    close in and enchant him.
    Cleansed of his longing for kisses.
     
    He rose like a wreck on a winch.
    Swaying and derelict.
    Suddenly boy again. Soon to be man.
     
    All of his grief was a burden to keep
    deep down in his guts.
    And he turned and he ran.
     
    Fighting with shadows.
    Swinging at birds as they laughed.
    Too shaken to hate what had happened.
     
    All that he’d learned to be true
    fell to pieces.
    He stared at the sun till it blackened.
     
    Watching his body like it wasn’t his.
    He pushed his new shape
    to the edge of the clearing.
     
    And found the red road
    that led out of the city.
    And screamed until no one could hear him.
     
    He journeyed for days,
    until he was purified.
    Feasting on tree bark and roadkill and petrol.
     
    Macho man; ate cars for breakfast.
    Natural man; skin the same texture as cactus.
    Hands grew wild and dextrous and flew at his side like two kestrels.
     
    His feet became tougher than limpets
    his eyes became keener than knives,
    his breath melted padlocks.
     
    He heard a leaf falling
    from five miles away,
    and he moved like a dog on a ham hock.
     
    All knowledge was his
    and he learned the old words
    for the things that he saw. He spoke out their names.
     
    He learned to forget
    his hurt and regret
    he walked on his own, legs like two flames.
     
    He grew dirty and tired and thirsty,
    at the next town
    he decided to stop at the bar.
     
    And he saw then: no matter how far you have come,
    you can never be further than right where you are.

These things I know
    Language lives when you speak