“Young Osric”

I run off stage in character keep

running to the Tiring House

tearing off the wig from

God knows whose head

rough hands helping me

strip my dress and bodices as I

sweat out the woman I was as

tears and rough usage

fumbling with different buttons as the

Clowns fumble with skulls

laughter and dread silence my

cue to be Young Osric

baited as a chough a

water-fly and fated to

hold a dying Queen’s head amidst

all that blood

an empty purse on a

vast stage but at least and

finally I can be a boy

Cannibalism

Poetry is bones, the flesh

chewed to the gristle, leaving

just enough to recognise a

human being.

 

But you won’t stay a

quiet skeleton in the corner,

keep growing more flesh for me

to gnaw on.

Craquelure

Perfect from a distance,

up close your face wears

faint lines of age which

others seek to mask with

expensive unguents or

cheap powder, but of which you are

proud, knowing a stylus

dropped into any groove would

replay a fine memory

perfectly.