Mo
 
Call me
 
is it that dream again?
The one where your brother runs wild
playing with fire,
flames lapping the hem of your dress.
 
Call me
 
you know your father likes to sit
in the kitchen and think, glass in hand,
of Dorothy, just turned thirty-six
and the cancer riddling her bones.
 
Call me
 
that dream won’t disappear on its own,
it’s perched on the edge of the curtain
shadow-spreading,
waiting for your sleepy eyes to close.
 
Call me
 
I’m the dream-eater.  Trust me.
Remember the story your father fed you?
How the room was fat with impatience
at telling it over             and over.
 
Call me
 
I tell better stories than him.
Would you like to stroke my sleek coat
or trace the curve of my nose?
I will not shout through walls.
 
Call me
 
do not believe his cautious words –
I hate the taste of hope and aspiration
sour-slurred over tongue.
I will bring the gift of comfort.
 
Call me
 
Note: A beast that is said to swallow bad dreams appears in the mythology of many cultures.
In Malay mythology, his name is Mo. A black and white tapir with an elongated nose. It comes with a warning- call it too often and it will also devour your hopes and aspirations.
 
 

Diagnosis
 
When you decided to leave,
to make a clean break
you scarpered up the A1.
Your delivery was poor,
me in a yellow frock
all giggles and frilly chat,
you in your white coat
as if pondering a diagnosis.
 
A new start, you said
as if waiting for a transplant.
Years later, strange
I-regret-it-all- letters
arrived in the post
floating like uninvited ghosts
shortly before you died,
I still can’t wear yellow.


 
Wind-Shift
 
Afterwards you were nameless.
You became The Old Man
and your lover, The Crow
on account of her dark features
and hard pebbled eyes.
 
My mother would plump your pillow
each heavy-limbed morning
believing you’d nipped out ‘on call’
or slipped into the kitchen
to simply put the kettle on.
 
The pretence grew
into something huge with wings
that took flight in the night
and landed each dawn
in the hunt for the shadow-man.
 
Excuses flew easily on wind-shift,
her bag perched on an empty chair
saving the space for her spouse
who was ‘visiting the sick’,
but I knew what sickness looked like.




Cubist Painting of my Father’s Funeral
 
I was not there, deemed too young.
All I have are facets of that day
spliced in grey like a painting by Picasso.
 
I was not there, I did not see
the unknown Yorkshire town cut and cubed.
I did not feel the final incision.
 
I did not see the mourners turn,
a multi-headed monster in jet,
the whip of its neck on the nave.
 
I did not see my sister stutter,
slide onto polished yew beside
the aliens, wide-eyed and bemused.
 
I did not see the black widow’s bite
bore into my siblings’ skulls,
nor her surprise as the secret leaked.
 
I did not hear the buzz of gossip
heaped upon the coffin of a man
they all admired, thought they knew.
 
I do not see the whole, only fragments
and snippets of a scene in muted tones.
I do not know if any of this is true –
 
I paint what I’ve been told.
I did not see refracted light clipping
the surface of every life he touched
 
but this is what I do know –
my father’s hands could heal the sick,
comfort the dying, turn love to stone.
 
Kate Young

If you have any thoughts about this poem, Kate Young  would like to hear them.