Glastonbury 2008

I wasn’t there
but Kelly was

and Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen, Amy –
who may or may not have been off her face
and hit someone –
Winehouse.

Neil Diamond
in the tea-and-biscuits slot on Sunday
Cherry-ohed,
red red wined
sweet Carolined
and reminded

me

of kisses and melting. The whirr
of the washing machine. ‘Washing? Who washes
on Sundays?’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘I work all week.’

(Besides I have to teach
this afternoon, if I can stop myself shaking
and drive.
If I can start making myself make sense.)

There were eggs scrambled in butter. Grilled bacon.
Mushrooms
toast
champagne.

****

I shouted for Joe. Come
listen to this!
He dragged himself downstairs, said
oh god mother what now?
He stayed for a little while – after all
it was before he was born
and nothing whatsoever
to do with him.

****

Kelly was at Glastonbury. She went
on Wednesday, camped
I think. Spent
nights with drummers, fire
eaters, people with masks.

She’ll have joined in
stayed up late
found someone to sing with.

Kelly doesn’t do edges, watching.

****

I cleaned half of the kitchen,
the half near the stove. Shined
oil-bottles (ground nut and olive)
til they gleamed. Consigned
past-sell-by-date herbs
and spices and things in jars I’d bought
because I thought
they might be useful
to the
newly washed
bin.

****

Joe stacked the rubbish
in the back of the car: the bottles
and the cans.

****

Groove Armada shook their ass.
There was strobing
and flags waved.

****

I smoked far too many cigarettes
drank three bottles of wine
loved
Vampire Weekend. Joe made toast.

James sent a text. Aaron left
his wallet.

Annie rang from Guernsey, bored.
Her father gave her a diamond.
She strung it
on a chain, hung it
round her neck with the ring
I gave her.

The kettle broke.
Cats demanded attention.

Spain
won the football.

The morning after

They don’t get up til teatime, the girls.
They make beds out of sofas,
and duvet cocoons.
They cover the floor
with cushions
and the tables with empty glasses.

Someone knocks on the door.
He’s come all this way
with the knee he wrecked
(when he fell off his bike)
and his hopes.

‘Are you coming out?’ he wants
to know.

***

Last year’s Strawberry Fair was hot.
Boys who’d gone in jackets
(to look cool)
wished they’d left them,
ate Jamaican food,
reeled back
at the reggae tent’s entrance
and its sweet smoke barrier.

***

This year is wet.
Annie blames the bags she must watch
when some fit hot someone
wants her
(to dance, he says).
At nearly sixteen she is old enough –
almost
but not quite –
to say yes.

***

The morning after,
she is safely wrapped in feathers,
pronouncing on relationships.

***
Later she shuts the door on Dobba,
with his sore knee,
who is not fit (though he used to be),
hot, new
or exciting.

Clare wears

Red is what Clare wears:
a sassy hat
with what used to be a rose
tucked into its ribbon

tighter than skin
tight jeans

a low-cut flowery dress.

‘Bastard!’ she says to Aaron.

***

The echoing rose James wears
is wilting too, drying as we watch.

***

The night
air cools.

***

Clare wears
youth and beauty lightly.
She wants to go indoors,
where it’s warm.

When Naomi made a picture

Naomi made a picture. She found a flame
cupped in someone’s hands.
It looked like an orchid
growing in warm wetness,
glowing
through the dark.

She chose a black man, and words
suggesting violence.

When she saw what she’d made, she cried.

I touched her shoulder, told her
it was supposed to be fun.

‘My life is shit’, she said,
’I didn’t know how bad.’

But Naomi made her picture on bright
yellow paper and, though the right
top corner was dark,
by the time she got to the other side
sun was shining through Spring leaves
and dolphins – two of them –
leapt.