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.

We glued
her head by
the right cheek to
the mirror she
had loved so much, had
gazed so fondly into, fascinated
by the mirror-face that showed her
new expressions. After much discussion (we didn’t want
to blow it) we inserted
ten acutes of
thin glass triangles
into her blue eyes, so they
fanned from the sockets
like rays. She
had pages
on social networks, with photos of herself
and a boxer
called Joe. Joe’s
dead now, of course
in the hall, beside
the rest
of her. They go everywhere
together, Joe and Jessica. For a while
there was a little
white cloud, or halo
on the glass, where her warmth
rested. We stood and watched, as
slowly, it
departed.