Photo by Matt Brown on Unsplash 

 
 
 

    Orpheus’s Awakening

 

That moment Orpheus looked back,
He knew what he had lost:
Lemon light drifting
Through French blinds,
Heat rising in an October cool,
The feeling of knowing you are exactly
Where you are meant to be.
Stumbling, stuttering,
Eurydice is before him now.
Face on concrete,
Neck like molten glass,
Orpheus is shaking her, waking her,
Telling her all the things
That used to come so hard.
‘You’re easy to love’, he shouts,
But Eurydice’s eyes are shut.

 
 
 

    Security

 

My favourite part of the holiday
Used to be putting my shoes
Into that blue plastic tray.
Listening to the flap of the black curtains
As yet another possession was slurped
Into a misshapen mouth.
I stood like a warrior,
Bare feet, muddy ankles,
Face glowing as I walked steadily
Through a minefield of lasers.
Being nine, I did not yet wonder
What it meant for somebody
To look straight inside you.
To stand without material
With the understanding that
Something within you
May not be liked.
Out of view,
each tray twisted and glided
across a grey sea.
Being nine, I did not grab anxiously.
Rather, when the time came,
I let them float into my hands
Like long-lost friends.