Hopscotch

When I was a little boy I found a pearl,
Round, perfect, shining in a roll/shift/roll Shift along
the bottom drawer, making a rattling route:
A smooth world curved, turned inside out
In the no man’s land between socks and sweaters.
It lived like a moon in miniature.

Made its own adventures.

I licked it, put that small reflection right up
To my eye, squinted. It was the loose lost eyeball of some
Firebird, some fairytale fish, its odd soft hardness
It’s rough smoothness. It looked at me with no purpose,
I put it in my mouth. Tasted its taste of the sea.
Rolled it behind my teeth with my tongue.

Savored the clattering noise the clicking between those
Little curved ivories. Piano keys. Stepping stones.
Hopscotch. Don’t step on the CRACK or you’ll
breaK your mother’s…
…It glided down my throat, loose loose in the sinew.

Loose to think of the tooth I swallowed
In a spoon, white and flat, on my 6th
Birthday when I was a little girl. tooth
And pearl sat, whispered a shanty, sea of two together
One Beside the other in my belly,
One daring the other to be the first to grow.

Roots dug int’ me. Loose, Loose skip to my…
Made paths searching out sap and blood,
Inhabited a hot hole between my legs,
Pearl and tooth Skipped Upright in gum-skin.
The bone the flesh the tissue.
Buds of teeth in head, pearls in every vein.

Don’t STEP on the…

Loose, Loose: years were Scots in London:
Walking up Shoot-up-Hill and skipping down
Hillhead. All the catholics, bike chains, wind-chafers,
Cheap whisky, postage stamps. Friction against sheds on grey days.
Boys dressed by C&A with radar in their fingers.
Cum tastes like chicken soup, cock like communion wafers.

Pin point eyes, sweet sweat and smoke:
Fry-up, Gig pass, Mayfair, Cum stain, CharleyZebraX-ray, Don’t step.
White. White skin sweating before the mirror.
The guys at the bar saw the teeth in my eyes. Extra shot.
No Mixers. Subconsciouss swill. Aye and a bag of chips.
Going mad today. Going mad today. Going mad today, CharleyXray.

…Desire Desert…in the rift…rift/crack….

…CRACK or you’ll break….

I vomited pearls.

Phasing like the moon.

Greasy spoon, mate, (ash balancing), Kick hir out of bed.
(S)he’s the pearl girl I found drunk in the park.
(S)he’s the tooth boy put her fingers inside her.
(S)he had a fight with the lead singer.
(S)he bit his neck and it shot out pearls.
(S)he’s got a poem stuck in hir throat.

Melting drifts of sheet in the silver slick of morning,
Making dry islands in the sea of Saturday shops.
Crazy Paving. Praying to the angel of Turnpike lane
Pieced myself together. Strung myself about my neck:
CharleyFoxtrot. Extra shot. No Mixers.
Sister Ray. No Problem. No TV. No time. No time atall

Now mint tea and be
Mother to me.
Polish that tooth
Nurse that pearl knee.
Living on smooth roads.
Sinking no ships, fearing no fall.
This was Just a little...
Hopscotch
That’s all.