Poppy Cockburn is a London-based writer and communications professional working in the visual arts. Exploring themes of violence, psychology, art, sex and love, her poems have previously been published by Anthropocene, Black & Blue, Dust Poetry Magazine and Rough Trade Books. Her debut pamphlet is due to be published by Invisible Hand Press in summer 2021.
Twitter: @poppypersonism
Email poppycockburn@gmail.com
_____
FIN
I was the last one left in the auditorium
having failed to notice the dwindling
sounds of sipping and cheering
of coats rustling – nylon and velvet
having failed to notice the temperature drop
and the heavy, burgundy curtains edging across
the way things echoed
and began to smell of must
till one-by-one the lights switched off
and finally, I realised
I couldn’t say how long I’d been there
sitting in the dark
I just couldn’t bring myself to leave
_____
art lover
I have posed proudly beside you as though
it was I who produced, or owned you
gazed lovingly at your colours [in
conversation with mine], your textures
your lines. I have felt resentment mounting
when others [who don’t know you like I
do] have presented you in retrospectives
for the benefit of strangers. I wish we could
be together, in private. I wend my way backwards
through temporary rooms in the hope of
finding you alone, that security won’t notice
I’m there and go home – but they never do.
A paper version of you hangs framed above
my bed, but a replica is not the same.
_____
3AM
She heard my sobs
from behind the screen
Oh [insert my name]
she held me in a candid hug
we’re the same age she said
looking at my notes.
Together, we slowly processed
through the strip-lit glow
of the humming ward
to a room, empty but for
basins attached to the wall:
Welcome to Siobhan’s Salon
she quipped and I smiled weakly
as she tilted my head back
with meticulous care
sluiced warm water
through my blood-dusty hair
rubbing in shampoo
and conditioner, deftly unmeshing
rusted knots, transforming them back
to silky swathes, seaweed soft.
I remember the water
running red
then clear again.
_____
restraint
you call
us friends
a
streetlight
dims
by morning
our surfaces
are pressed tight
in an embrace
of passionate
opacity
translucence is
conceived in
dreams
ours’
are distinct
and unyielding
we kiss at length
in the doorway
play-acting
an unreality
[we’re friends –
aren’t we?]
the last
streetlight
fades out /
goes off
the sky is
blank
is
dust
_____
plum
I catch you
by your velveteen skin
rock you in my palm
sooth you with a song
bite into your flesh
swallow your success
spit out your stone
pick out pith
from my teeth
and with that
you’re gone
_____
A butterfly lands heavily on my eyelid
the background music
lulls me like a drug: head nodding
I let it carry me along
till I’m standing alone
in a glass room among crowds, covered in
butterflies…so impractical. Someone tries
to kiss me but
I cannot kiss them back in case
the butterflies get crushed; I continue
nodding [not signalling yes
or no, just nodding] I drift downstream
in my winged couture, taking in the scenes
a window shopper, never properly stopping
not going in / investing – I have nothing
left to spend anyway. I guess
it would be nice to get caught
on a fallen tree or root on this
river-based shopping centre
of sorts [of sorts], but no such thing
occurs, the coast is clear beneath fog
and I am dragged along on time’s tide
accumulating butterflies that flit
and flutter and mate and procreate
on my body; lay eggs, caterpillar along, form
chrysalises and re-emerge, then
die. I feel angry sometimes. Why
am I always here? Can intentions be
artificially inseminated? Can a
disembodied arm feel love?
Do you want the butterflies gone?
That’s out of my control.
[I see the wasps dropping
from your trouser legs].
The butterflies are mine – they
land heavily on my eyelids.
The butterflies are mine.