There is a deafening roar,
Now that I am grown,
Of lost meanings, lost love:
Their key in the lock, the air
On their coats as they got home
Jumpers as goalposts, smoking
In Costa, the smell of casserole,
It roars in me, his knee-plea cry,
Don’t go, please don’t go!
There was a dog that ran too fast
For me to catch up and made me
Scream its name, heartbroken,
And it never came. The too-small
Blue plates at granny’s, her peas,
My strutting sex on the prom,
With socks in my bra excited
That one day I would be grown.
Then I was a drink-please woman,
A laughing, dreaming child full
Of men and fear and wasted time,
No coat-air, no dog-love screams,
Just a diagnosis of what went wrong.
Here is truth: Life is not mistaken.
Let me rise through you in words,
From beyond this clunky line, like
Earthborn rain falling upwards to a well:
We’ll roar now from eternity anew.