Tessa Berring's pamphlet 'Cut Glass and No Flowers' was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2017.
'Suck'
said the purple concrete
which is not true
The concrete was silent,
the concrete was grey
the concrete was not covered
in little gap-tooth violets
(who said it was, eh?)
There was no fresh breeze
there was something wet on my lap
(It was a Tuesday)
Things got ripped
My hat was blue corduroy
There was an apple core
and a colourless shoe
washed up at the shoreline
*
I feel as if I am praying (again)
Yesterday someone said
'don't be so damn solemn!'
'Dear God!', they said,
'it's all a show, remember'
There was an office chair
- an orange one
some jolly music on the radio
There could have been flowers
(foxgloves?)
There were pale blue cotton buds
stains on a surface
outdoor cows
who knew nothing at all.
Film
I've forgotten the whole story
about the hair that the man
could not locate
on his tongue
How I could not bear to watch
his parted lips
his searching finger and thumb
How the camera lens
stayed glued
around his mouth
for more than four minutes
and not to the figure
of the woman on the ground
with the dropped margarine
in the brown-yellow light
Nobody saw her get up
and walk away
Did anyone see her get up
and walk away?
