Blossom
–Tim Smith-Lang
Dreams, the keys of the big house,
all the little boys and big running in and out.
Mark, disappointed in the wreckage, so,
of all the things we broke
and couldn't unbreak back again. Then
I fell or flew, tripping and weightless down a hill,
running from people known
to me and not. A shout. Somewhere aware
in the dark of the hot back next me, white
and simmering. There were things - strong
the sense of us - we lost. Ties broken, bridges
we severed in the night. Faults. I was running
with a vase when I tripped finally
and fell. Unplanned a sleepless jerk in bed
landing. Nothing broke. I felt very young.
In the wrong. Hot. I rolled away and slept.
Now, today's been so hot and cold by turns
it's strange, as though, in the half light
from under clouds the suspicion of snow
could have been blossom,
from trees more lofty-high
with roots more deep below
than the way things have fallen out,
or the foundations of the big house,
than anywhere I could dig to
in the back garden of my grandparents'
house, small on weekends, purposeful
with a red spade, down past the yellow clay
and on. I drift. Deeper than those. Pieces
unbroke come back to me: sharing the bed, too hot,
the fall, making a collapse of things. Blame,
a curtain pulled across a cold bright window.