Tag-team boys write themselves
Large on impossible flyovers, claiming
Names slapsimple, direct as punches,
All for kicks, feral afternoons,
Late sun and dares taken
Filling out their scrawny chests
Like the smell of hot wood
inside the potting shed.
Spray-cans, brotherhoods bloom
Here where the wildflowers scribble
Over the edges and it is observed
But never dissected, hedgehog
Carcasses poked with sticks.
Not really dressed for wing-walking,
The girls wait for them at Snaith’s Field
Wrapping their slouches round swing chains,
Editorial spread for Diamond White,
Accessories by Lambert & Butler.
They never attempt a perfect dismount
From the still top edge of the upward arc,
Not even when they are alone. Apart
From anything, bodies are harder to look at
When in motion. And to fall, to fall, no, no…
The others won’t hold the sheet tight for you,
They will only watch, then cut their eyes away.
A decade ago, before they were female,
They were bodies, bodies running
Through this same field, but spangled
With daisies, hundred of push-pop petals
As if summer is a snow-globe
And they are the glitter, forever
Running towards the far side, the whole body
A reaching hand so open, so infallible
Of course it grasps the finish tape
With everything else, as much blue sky
As you can eat, and this field, this field
As big as a field ever was, filled
With an eternal ovation of daisies.
Kirsten Luckins 