Helicon, November 2001, Issue 1

Contents

Butterfly

Tea at The Grand by Jemimah Kuhfeld

Houses that were like thickly iced wedding cakes
(or Christams cake or christening cake)
with four solid corners
and decorative carvings clingings as if made of marzipan:
A sweet and rich district
which, inside from out, looked like a mystery,
smelling of mahogany and dense fruit cake.

In-between two of these
would suddenly appear a horizontal crease of green
and the already scented haze of water after.
We would walk on into the afternoon
of a winter day not quite our own;
the air still smelling of age.
The promenades rehearsing opulence we had never known.

We were late to the hotel.
A revolving glass show case door left me
feeling under-dressed, seen-through,
inside the now shabby interior.
Marble still as good as new: triangles od shark's teeth,
penguin waiters or a floor of folded napkins.
The mind dances away on the polished side of imagination.

We could be chess pieces.
And we sit to sip tea
watching a view of sea tumbling wave over wave
like fists full of cards, losing at bridge;
like the Captain on his vessel's maiden voyage,
when struck by impediment or sea too rough;
it is like our idea today, barely floating.

Rain drops flick against glass
like the sudden emphasis of words.
My voice is respectfully low:
the unselfconscious murmur that drowns
itself with a pause
watching the water,
watching your mind pace in your face.

I am no longer wearing gloves; we are inside
and I do not take your hand.
I should not remember watching you kiss her.
My white fingers are bare and cold
under the drape of the cloth.
My tea cup does not tremble in its saucer,
there is not the clink of a ring against china.

Shoreline I

I. Our love is from Blue Peter, but there is no need to use glue: It's just like origami, 'cause I'm folded into you.

II. Our love will last to the end of time, for I have picled it, in brine.

III. Our love could be compared to last night's stroganoff. It's stuck to the bowl that is my soul, and I can't get it off.

IV. Our love is like a traffic cone beside a motorway. Unless somebody steals it, forever will it stay.

V. Our love is thorny roses, growing in manure. I'm prickly, you're a shit, but together we are pure.

SMASH. My mother relied on it thick and creamy if you made it with butter the way she did every morning after breakfast in the kitchen. there wasn't any room for real potatoes she said no room to keep them in their brown porridge state heavy and soiled like rotten hands she said no room no room. I didn't know what real mash was didn't know where the name came from until I was nine and then I knew because I was told. But SMASH was fine fine she said it was fine and you didn't know the difference I didn't know the difference because I didn't have anything different. I saw her every morning making it cutting it around the bowl with a knife until the lumps where gone just like real potatoes but more white. Besides it said on the pack it was made with real potatoes probably obviously without the mouldy bits that would grow and become new potatoes dirty like a whore. She didn't have substitutes for other things except fathers which I know now because I was told. No room no room for papa so she had substitutes but not like mouldy papa who she was cutting it around with rotten hands and a knife.

Seaweed

Parrot Flower

Untitled by Natalie Samuel

He isn't handsome, or strong. He doesn't have blond hair that spikes up
from where the sweat runs down between his shoulder blades when he runs. He
isn't gentle, or sweet, he doesn't make me laugh, he doesn't have the sort
of arms that close around me like a seatbelt. He doesn't go floppy and
huggy when he's drunk and trip against me without realising how my breath
trips and my eyes close slightly. He isn't a person you could call when
things go wrong or you need a friend or someone to assume your version is
right someone to trust and adore and ruffle his hair as he sleeps with his
head on my shoulder. I don't think about and imagine him every moment that
I think and imagine. I won't love him forever and he will never ever love me.

Thoughts of Dusk and the Road by Theo Berry

One wonderful March evening,
With the smell of dust and woodsmoke wafting around the budding branches,
As the aerial medley’s song caresses cheerfully in a natural time and rhythm,
I gaze at the wounded hill,
Bright and dangerous against the grey green fields,
The last light bleeds into the plasma pale evening sky,
Past the alien pylons, and above the road.

I turn on the gravel and crunch back to house.

Shoreline II

This is the light of the mind by Donald Fraser

Dry cracked digits lever up old flagstones headstones hidden-under-bed stones
hooking up the soft mush for grinding mouths to mix with the latest spittle and hold
forth bring it forth for all to see a new and novel trinket now beyond the cemetery
gate. Much hooting and keening and the banging of drums. Closer, yes! Today the drums
sound closer do they not and would you deny it? For this is the light of the mind.

Flashing good ideas from a dirty raincoat, quality of life coat do you have insurance
for the journey ahead, Mate? In for a penny in for a pound where the drum beat leads
then we can be found: cure for cancer. A group of scientists announced today that they
have discovered a public private partnership in my liver. Would you deny it?
For this is the light of the mind.

Thin greasy fingers running down the pages, missing every seventh word for hunger,
every eighth for passion, every ninth for fatigue... but closer! The way it was and will
be coming closer, pressing out all present encumbrances and now, sweet Lord yes! We have
a hold of something, quickly bring it, show it, the perfectly embalmed spleen of some
misplaced misconception. Beat the drum, stop the press! For this is the light of the mind.

She waves him over for the first time ever when he leaves the house – they’ve never spoken for all that she’s a neighbour, and all he knows is that Jen said she asked to borrow butter once and rubbed it then and there into her feet and face. Right there on the step, Jen sniffed.

There’s a buggy at her feet now, her hand held easy by its handle. It’s big and black and scary somehow, like a cave that you could lose your way in. So he looks in half expecting to find dark depths and finds instead a baby in a bearskin, all in one. Ears and fur and all.

And here’s him thinking she was fat, making comments (only to himself of course) about pancake eating when it seems it was a different meal altogether. This pettiness is all that he has left.

The baby yawns, its gums as pink as icing. Across the road three crones aaaah, transfixed.

“Cute suit,” he says. He hates the word himself but he has heard her say it – and each to shape the words as the mood takes them he’s always said. To him it’s murder, kid in a skin like that, but here she is and it takes all sorts.

“Well thanks,” she smiles with her yellow grin. “Better than a bare skin, eh?” She laughs so he does too as though it’s funny – got to keep on the right side after all or in this case the left, two doors down, you never know these days. Best not be rude. Strange smells in their garden sometimes, on the wind and everywhere come Sunday. The Crowleys complained to Council and their house took thirteen days to clean. A shame he’s sure but rather them than him.

There’s something in her eyes tells him to ask, fall at the altar, fall down and worship at her baby’s paws.

“How long?” he says. Best keep the peace – it’s not so long now since the pyres burnt out and things are better now, much better, or that at least is what you whisper as you wait for dawn.

“Two feet,” she tells him, pleased as Punch was when he hanged the hangman.

“I meant, how old?”

“Three days.” Which can’t be right, unless – unless. In her eyes a dare he does not dare to take. He smiles and nods, nods and smiles. And is careful not to ask the name – there’s power in names and she knows his.

“A boy or girl?” It’s wrapped so snug in skin that he can’t tell.

“A boy,” she beams. “We knew before, we took the test.”

“The Ultrasound?”

“The other – the midnight wine one, with the knives and blood.”

“I thought you needed songs for that.”

“Only for the ones they plan to steal.”

“Of course.” (Of course. Their Tanith was never truly theirs, though she was given freely for a time. A sad day when they took her home and sometimes still he remembers how her little hooves kicked when he sat her on his knee. She was a curse to treasure. Best not cry.)

He leans in close. It’s not as pretty. Never could be.

“You can if you want, and I know you do,” she tells him. Her eyes glow in the growing dusk.

So he reaches out and knots his hands around its neck and tries and tries, but it moves faster than a baby could or should and all’s dark now. Its smiles are snares to catch you.

“Well done for being patient, precious. For patience is a virtue,” says the mother, happy. And he is drawn in, drowning. Peace, they promised, and an early grave. It’s long past time.

“Go on,” she breathes. “My life, my love, my one and only.”

And then there’s pain. Bite down bite down but no blood spills, all’s neat, no wasting. Boys will be boys but it’s a shame – his finger gnawed almost to bone now – there you go. Should have known better, and it’s best not to –

Bear in a baby skin, showing sharp teeth and hungry as the fire they threw the old days in. No help and no regrets. Look up the street look down – bears everywhere in suits and skins. The three old ladies growl and wave their claws. So sweet.

“There,” she says. “You made your mother proud. The scream was lovely. Too bad there’s never quite enough to share.”

Mouth spreads and spreads into red meat. A human life is quick to taste and take.

Soon done.