Amy, how to write poems
for Amy McCauley again
in these times of boxes and unlearnt languages
and cats dreaming twitchyleg distress?
I do what the advice books say and write every day
but lately o lately my poems are just lists for leaving:
buy new cat carriers, microchip the cats,
tell the cats about THE MOVE.
The flats behind ours have been knocked down
yet no one will come for the rubble, the rusty washing
line poles. This could be an analogy for something
significant if I could remember what ‘analogy’
means and you know it’s hard to find anything
close to conceptualisation with all this aching
business of marks on the page – o – and what’s
the sodding point of poems anyway?
The cats wake up and I lie about the future.
They smell deceit, and because I can’t bear
their moans of betrayal I head into town,
into my regrets, where people are chalking
death on the hoardings of the unbuilt Tesco
and the wind wants to drag the best laid plans
out to sea. Plus ça Tuesday. I slalom
scaffolding to find you in the Italian deli
but lack lingo wherewithal to order your latte. Mi
dispiace! Me, 100% linguistic black hole, and you,
expanding galaxy of words, you who are song,
guess piccolo is probably small – si! Prego. Bingo.
We discuss the Muses who never come round mine.
For all I know they’re in the ruin of the old flats
or haunting the cats’ dreams. For all I know
I know nothing. Not a coffee bean. Nada yada nada.
On the way out we talk cat stress when moving.
The good news is that your cat has recovered
from her trips on the train to Manchester
and when I get home I find half a shrew
on the stairs so I end the day thinking, bach,
things might be OK. In Italian this will be bene.
Katherine Stansfield’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in New Welsh Review, Poetry Wales, Magma, Planet, The Lonely Crowd, The Lighthouse, Ink Sweat & Tears and The Interpreter’s House, and her poem ‘Canada’ was Poem of the Week in The Guardian online. Her first collection, Playing House, was published by Seren in 2014, and last year she was awarded a writer’s bursary from Literature Wales to complete her second collection. After many years living on the west coast of Wales, which included a stint as a university lecturer, Katherine is currently travelling in North America until she runs out of cash (sadly imminent). Twitter: @K_Stansfield
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