You have given, and given, until giving has grown

into habit - so that you move to the stove

without thought, without word, the moment

the green of my jacket stipples your window:

ladle the soup that is always ready, rearrange

the condiments, or slop eggs for the beaten track

of an omelette. Sometimes, I can almost believe

you pass the day moving from stove to telly and back

again; or taking the one leather bag to the shops

for the loaf, the eggs you stow as though they might

ignite, two words with the butcher: was tender; was tough.

The odd hour spent in the husbandry of bills.

You hoard your knowledge of the man who died, left you

with sons: onion skin copies with their own

lives. You keep that knowledge safe, as though telling

might erase it. The pruning of decades takes your words

beyond the graft of mine. So, you listen, tolerate

the electric hotplate, the central heating;

were happier with the sooted cauldron twenty of you

could have your fill from, the firewood chopped

by your father, brought by donkey. You grew

maize from seed, knew how to feel

for an egg in the chicken. We sit in silence now,

with English tea to sip, some soup, until I have

to go. You follow as far as the empty drive, wave

as you stoop for a windfall branch,

add it to the wood pile you keep in the garage

that year by year inches towards the eaves.

I.

There were insults I couldn't hurl -

Shit-face, Thicky - without drawing

worse abuse: What's fit-face? Who's

Vikky? So I played it safe: Wallys.

Pigs. Pearls of sputum quivered on

my lower lip to be cast among swine.

II.

She was perfect. Sound.

As safe as Mum, but with legs

gorgeously crossed, breasts somehow

different. Mondays and Wednesdays

at ten o'clock, at the sight of her,

a huge o tongue stirred in my belly.

Like this. And say: Th'! Th'!

She smiled. But all my efforts

fell short - too much lower lip

or else I'd throw the baby tongue

out with my saliva. All Effs and Vees

and bright cheeks.

by the sea shore. OK? Another smile.

The straits of Sh! left me beached.

My prodigal tongue a lounger

in the forecourt of my mouth.

Try again. Same result. Finally

my eyes brimmed over, fluent.

She looked at me hard then.

Put her finger to her lips, the teacher's

sign for silence. Sshhhh…

She lingered on that sound, so I would

hold my tongue - which made me smile,

because her eyes betrayed

how much she desired that I speak.

III.

Tripping off her tongue, to the tip of mine:

I spoke instead of fees and fells, bizarre

relations of the stoat. The harder

I slurred with mine, the more she stuck out

hers - strange, polite - to show my fault.

I aspired to that tongue so delicate

so deft in its execution, a sweet-peach

embarrassment to me, lithe cushion

for the teasers' pins. Years later,

I'd see another tongue that way:

a girl's, behind the bike sheds -

tantalising, tail-tip of the pink slug

stuck out to show me how to french-kiss.

I follow my usual recipe.

First a mould of the skull, into which

I slurry the cream of plaster.

Matchsticks are sunk - surveyor's posts -

at twenty-five strategic points

for the shaping of papier mâché flesh.

Tissues follow the cast - like soil

on contoured bedrock - but with depth

varying according to formula.

Nasal bone gives length, eye position

width, of the nose; mouth spans

the spatial chasm of pupils.

Lips are less certain.

Finished, this one is long, sad.

A shroud-face.

At the inquest, the woman gasps

That's him. The sergeant beams -

has his man, though dead.

On occasion, it's murder. Or suicide.

Crania charred in motorway pile-ups.

Swan Hunter, HMS Glasgow, Lockerbie -

I've done them all. My creations,

solemn-faced stars on telly. Thousands

come forward, quick with recognition.

But not for Vicky -

bones spilled, after floodwater,

from under a dune. Bleak Northumbria.

Victorian buttons the only clue.

Her, I built from almost nothing -

skull crushed to sherds, one jaw missing…

No name was forthcoming. Vicky's mine.

On Fridays, I've goof and gap-tooth

wanting braces, trying not to look

at my heads. I say - Just old friends.

Work late most nights - no reason

not to. No pocket snap carries my likeness.

But Vicky watches from the glass cabinet.

Somehow, can't quite finish her

report. I extinguish the anglepoise -

its slack muscle of light -

make a stab in the dark. Convince myself

her eyes were blue.

Dat de way it alway been, say Mum:

de top and de bottom. And we at de bottom.

Suny day, I see house at top our road -

big roof, big window-no-wood-in, big car.

But we OK - got three room for we six,

plenny carboard to burn, patch up window-smash.

Pub at top our road got panellin

and carvery and car park. Our pub

all smoke and sausage and fisticuff.

Top de road got anteak shop,

wedding-cake shop, state agent. We got

crooky grocer, coal shop, porn broker.

One day, ask Mum if I can get to top our road.

She say: yes, mebbe - if you strong nuff, if you

ruthless nuff, lucky nuff. But it bluddy hard

climb. I suprise she swear. I surprise

she keep talk about roof. Roof alway leak anyway.

Anyway, she don't know, but I thinking:

come one day not too soon, world

give it last revolution. Den our road flip arse

over elbow, send all dat high people tumble

down. Den see who at top.

Dis belief.

How easy for me, your son,

youthful lungs trawling in one sweep -

cigar smoke, omelette, the girl

next door. One day I told you

how in physics we'd calculated

each lungful held billions of atoms Galileo'd inhaled.

It took a full week

for you retort - as always

off the nail. Must be I've used it all then -

That's why each draw's so bloody hard.

Left me speechless.

Till, catching you that night at the foot

of your Jacob's Ladder, ascending

to the one bulb of the landing toilet,

I told you how I'd checked with sir:

You can't use it all, I piped

Your mouth a slur, suspended

over your chest. Fist

white on the rail.

Don't hold your breath son, you said.

I'd stand at the door like one bereaved:

Aghast and breathless,

With silence stretched between us

For a second

Before it snapped -

And my heart burst its banks

In belief.

Then I'd draw you in by both hands

I'd kiss you on the mouth, on the face

Wear out your name

with soft saying

I'd kiss you more than you would want

Until you'd have to draw back, breathless

As one wounded

To try to speak, to tell me

Why it was you came.