Betsy Porritt
IN THE MANNER OF A CUP
light a candle as evening falls
domestic and unavoidable, who are you
in relationship to this space? Passenger
to paternal law
rings spectacular resistance
touching a relic that blessed ‘clean’ governance
footpaths invent themselves
waterruns in the public square,
different alphabets lap lap lap my mum
and I talk about my sister’s eggs
I push at the scrim with my eyes closed
my nephews are tactile and puppyish
with my back to the core I’m looking out
a truck vibrates by to Dover
silences are blocked passages in our gut intelligence
I keep on taking my shoes off
in private
we hear our neighbours, sound sutures us
I plant bulbs because I’m in love
with the closeness of promises somewhere my
mother turns her attention to logistics
we drink coffee from a flask in the crown of a
fallen Ash I won’t write the difficulty of being
numerous my hands are framing the daily
between feast days and tax returns are concrete
blocks paving slabs iron sheeting and a weapon pit
a baby is crying in a different
part of this building
I’m talking about acts of horticultural
and civic care
I’ve made a triangle with my fingers tenderly
trying to enclose what I mean
holding you all at arm’s length
I can come in the time it takes you to clean your
teeth turning my face to the ground so I can bear
witness to the future
from EQUIVALENT MATERIALS
*
hours ooze contains ‘we’ and ‘was’
now we threshold diagonally eave deaf peeping
cottony holding place we’re bookshelf people
shoulder part of the building envelope
hold pronounced ‘house’
*
delightful eyelid liquidity russet dyed
strip to origin plain metal body
rabbit eyes in the rabbit light
shared outline
‘your’ safety is important to ‘us’
*
how to shoulder the teeth futures
making eye contact hands in continual motion
speak boney truth
buckle under it’s ok
readdress the ground
*
for now little bread biter
we’re wild grass people
waiting on the rushcutters
grubbied council vans hold the tar rate
baked in a bottomless pie and ate it
Betsy Porritt recently completed her PhD on Susan Howe and material culture. These poems are from a series that will be published in full from Guillemot Press in Autumn 2022. Other work appears in SPAM 001, Amberflora 10, and Datableed Zine X.