trout

I'd like you to listen

Anna Jackson

I know you don't want to remember,
after all these years of growing up –
who would want to climb back down
to the wooden days
when we were wooden
and we couldn't see each other
for the wood?
But it was down below
we learnt those notes
sto ste sto ste
hopping from ear to ear,
the ears of two sisters.
I was Charlotte.
You wanted to fight me
for that name but I wouldn't come out
of the game, so I won.
Sto ste!

I actually never really wanted
to stop playing, even if you did.
When they caged those notes
my heart was pulled as tight
as the sky when it is caught
inside a wicker cage.
It was years later
before I could even find
that old cage again,
too broken down
to keep anything alive
caged up – it was
caging up bones.
You had to put them very close
to your ear to hear them sing,
or sort of slither.
Did you hear wither
or whither?
I heard whither,
and this is my reply.