Free My Family and Other Superheroes by Jonathan Edwards Page A

shakes and begs for mercy beneath you?

3

Girl
    That girl’s the girl I mean. That one now, wearing
    no-animals-were-harmed-in-making-these-
    leopardskin leggings, ears posing the question
    of what are ears for, really,
    but bearing the weight of the biggest silver-
    coloured hoops on earth? In diamanté
    scarlet heels, six inch,
    when she walks, everything sparkles, everything
    limps. Her hair is piled up on her head,
    like the kind of coastal clifftop rampart
    cameras swoop in at from the sea,
    in historical action movies, featuring
    Mel Gibson. Up her sleeve
    is a tattoo, a Chinese symbol, and what it means
    is clear. Look, that’s her now, outside The Mermaid,
    going a little cross-eyed as she draws
    on a cigarette and shouts across the street,
    asks an acquaintance if she’d like
    some, would she? So how else
    can I put it? How much clearer can I be?
    That girl’s the girl. That girl’s the girl for me.

Welsh National Costume
    Fancy dress? Always a laugh. My Tom Jones
    sideburns-and-flares number in the bag,
    we’re drawn past Britney, Cinderella,
    to a rail at the back. The pleats, the hat,
    the lace. Your face. And later, the text you send:
    Helpless. Help. I rush round to find
    you’re a ball of tartan on your carpet,
    a post-match, post-pub Scotsman, so
    I dress you. The rule of thumb
    is wherever I see a bit of body,
    cover it with rough checked rug:
    where there are bedclothes, tablecloths,
    put them on, until you’re mummified
    by plaid. Hold it together with safety pins
    and what my mother said. This is murder
    on my skin, you moan, but I stick to it:
    the peepshow frills, the death-bell bonnet,
    tied with ribbon that makes your chin
    a present. Now you’re all dressed:
    your body’s imaginary, legs an idea,
    and under all that cotton, what’s the self?
    The only way to get you back’s to hug you
    and it’s then I feel it, down past all those layers
    of cloth and history, the light, the dark:
    the steady thrum, my love, of your English heart.

Us
    Me on a three-day crash course in the language
    of rail travel – floors are called chairs
    and chairs are called beds – to show up at your door,
    eighteen years to the minute since you were born.
    Your face, as if
    you’d opened the door to a six-foot bottle of milk.
    Me buying pearls till your neck smiles,
    then nicking them, pawning them, going to the dogs.
    Me learning your language – the textbook a spittoon,
    the consonants rattling like an abacus.
    You, with your ears stoppered
    with headphones, a giant medicine bottle.
    Me putting my mouth where my money is,
    hurting my knees and showing you the ring,
    the shop assistant’s home number
    scribbled on the back of the receipt.
    You, with your mouth so closed,
    it’s a buttonhole beneath your nose.

The Doll
    I woke up with my arm round my wife,
    the clock somewhere between four and five,
    slipped out of bed and dressed in the dark.
    Paused for the rhythm of her breathing,
    quick-quick-slow across the landing,
    muffled the door, set off for the park,
    where night had turned off all the colours –
    grey-black grass and grey-black flowers.
    The swings took the piss out of the gallows
    and the climbing frame held up the sky.
    No child swung and no child climbed.
    I found her stretched beneath the willows:
    about the size of a healthy baby,
    dress somewhere between a sneeze and a hankie,
    here-and-now lips and elsewhere eyes.
    Each cheek was red as a stop sign,
    on her wood wood face on wood wood bones.
    Who could have left her here? Who could have known?
    In the crook of my arm I carried her home,
    as dawn painted its watercolour,
    made a sundial of each street light.
    Before I got back I’d have to drop her
    and never never make mention of her,
    or of the reasons I walk out at night.

Decree Nisi
    Kelly, this week I’ve filled the house with strange men:
    the plumbers and plasterers, the ‘leccies and lackeys,
    the lofty