SUSAN DARLINGTON

FOUNDLING

I know you don’t believe I was a foundling

but this is the form where I suckled my mother’s teat,

the milk rich with the secret of silence and speed.

It nurtured me while I waited for her return,

the east wind raging against my presence,

lashing pebbles at my sides to make me break cover

into the sightline of eagles that quivered overhead

and foxes that stole slow minutes across the field.

I bit down hard on my calloused fingers

to resist pain and superfluous movement

and I drew further into my solitariness with each moon.

It worked. It worked for thirty-five years

until they flushed me out and captured me,

dragging the burrs out of my matted hair

and scouring my earth rich skin in the stink of soap.

You don’t believe I was raised a foundling

but I sit and wait; I bide my time in silence

and when the chance arises into the wild I’ll hare.

*****

SCAFFOLD

The molten steel was the lightning.

The hammer shaping metal the thunder.

The spark for their monster was heated rods

being pushed through blue painted gridlines

that glimmered wetly on thigh and calves,

the interlaced struts forming scaffold stilts.

Slick with the blood of vernix-coated pain

she teetered on new born legs; a fawn

clutching at cupboards, door frames, roof beams

to balance herself as she rose towards the light.

Their screams barely reached her cloud-bound ears.

Their weapons were midges swatting into her flesh.

She blinked in the rain, felt the freedom

of occupying more space with surety.

But blinded to their fear she didn’t know

that it was a false release or that metal rusts.

*****

THE OPERATION

The operation was a success, says the doctor;

all of the affected cells were removed.

I stare ahead in a white blank,

the smell of antiseptic wrapped sheet tight.

It will be necessary to run tests, she says,

to confirm that no further treatment is needed.

I rub a hand over my unevenly cropped hair,

feel cold metal staples arc across my skull.

She shows me image after meaningless image.

Then she holds up a photos - horizon-wide smile,

a constellation of freckles painted on olive skin -

and my heart races where memories used to lie.


**********all poems copyright Susan Darlington, 2019