Somewhere in the Midlands a
newly bereaved husband sits watching television with his three
small children. A couple
plants Jerusalem artichokes on their allotment in Zone 6. Up and
down a street in Bromley, a
window cleaner overhears family arguments. In Wiltshire, a
woman and her daughter
collect potting compost from molehills on the village green. A man
in Coventry finishes his
thesis on bats. Eggs are delivered to the neighbours, campers moved
on from Flynn’s Pass. In
Honolulu, an elderly lady completes the first draft of her book
about
her murdered friend
while her husband teaches online. A woman plucks a stray hair from
her
nose. Somewhere in
Brooklyn a woman wonders if they will ever mail her that tweed hat she
left behind. Mules
stand in a field. A man in Bray posts a picture of an object he
has thrown
up into the sky. A boy falls
off his bike and breaks his leg. Lilac grows. Two small children
sleep in a teepee in the
living room. Their mother is one of the first people in Naples to get
a
haircut. In California a man
films his husband playing the piano. A family’s new puppy shits
in the kitchen again. A
woman in Glasgow is told not to set foot outside her door for twelve
weeks. Food parcels are
delivered. Teenagers make love in the backseat of a car. On the
island, a woman walks
through the woods in her wellingtons and a kimono. A farmer tears
out 200 metres of nesting
hedgerow. Ponds are built, an origami eagle. A vet straightens a
surfer’s broken nose on
Pendine Beach. A boy finds a crayfish in the lake. His younger sister
falls headfirst out of the
boat. Someone’s ex dies. A girl poses in her parents’ back yard. A
young woman records birdsong
outside her Leyton window. A mother of two small children
is told her tumour is
enflamed. Her husband cycles three times around the lake. In upstate
New York, her sister pins a
rhinoceros beetle in a display case. Twin girls run naked through
a large house. An artist
couple kiss in front of his painting in their studio in Szczecin. Funeral
services are broadcast live.
In downtown Toronto, an aunt sits in her apartment surrounded by
her life’s work, including
the coffee table. A hare runs the circuit of a yellow field. A
radiologist cancels
outpatients. A man cooks a lone steak on a barbeque. Someone pays ten
euro for a tape of other
voices to harmonise with. A sculptor chips away at a stone horse. A
teacher praises her
student’s meticulousness. Children look blankly at their grandparents’
faces.
(
Shortlisted for the Montreal
International Poetry Prize 2020)