When I was a boy cycling home from school
on evenings in late summer when the drizzle fell,
I would stop and walk naked in an ancient wood I had to pass —
warm pools and sopping leaves beneath my feet,
scents of wet earth and early fungus on the air—
until I reached a certain tree-trunk lying on its side,
barkless and smooth as bone, luscious with dark slime.

Such excitements I had there, gripping the tree with my legs,
tight with blood, sliding slowly, my mind conjuring
the creature that dwelt within; her smiles and textures:
tangles of fine roots stinking of leaf-mould,
dark fruit heavy in the hands,
a sticky trumpet flower, its stamen a thick curl,
bright pollen crusting on my groin.

Later, my body washed in the soft rain, I dressed
and cycled furiously home to mum, for hot tea and brown eggs,
that I opened like the summer with my spoon.

The dead
are making babies still
fucking in porno clips
on the web. That’s my mummy
opening her legs
for that hairy
man. Was I conceived just then, is that bearded
bloke my da, who hugs her
close and gentle in the year
that she was beaten for
an hour, and died in the back room
of her local pub?

I watch her
do it all again — I’m sure
she likes him, her smile’s so real, so’s
the way she comes. Does
she sense we’re all around, unseen
and watching
over her, and maybe even guess
I’m out here too, staring
at the pearly gates
that I came through?

Before
I’m older than her twenty nine
I want to do a film of Jimmy
fucking me, and leave
it near her in the web’s forever now. You’ll find us
listed under hairy milfs, perhaps
with offspring still to come, all fruit
upon an endless vine.

But I’m glad
I can download my mum, know
the fierce embraces
that she gives, proud to have her here
in my own room, the way
she once welcomed me
into her salty womb, and kept me safe, a mad life
bouncing in its padded cell, while her red
heart roared up above, then broke
like a wave of the sea.