Poetry by Ankh Spice

​Book/marks

Twelve years ago, you left
me
your book of sea-poems -
tonight, in a secret
pillow-moon of lamplight
I untuck the dogear on page 4
tender as a shaming
never teased

The gone-shape of your hand
moves counter to mine 
and regret folds me clean in half -
that the creases we leave behind
are so easily unfolded

On the day they burned you
I filled your cold palm
with tiny shells
tucked closed the fingers
that had already marked this page
for later




How do you even do this

This is not reminiscence
      the way we plan it.

I can't hear this song and not think of you
but it's never as a poet would, not
mumbling that soft word, no 
sepia, no 
vignettes glowing with wise life,
no
it's always your last day,
       the ice-water phonecall, 
       the drive (rural, stretched/cut, blur), 
       and that song
on repeat,
       that nurse, tired
eyes everywhere but me
'We expected her to go hours ago,
but she waited. For something'.
 
Let's try again
      with this reminiscence thing.
If you were here, you'd have me 
      singing along
to The Logical Song
(but no, it would feel anything but logical, if you were here to make me sing)
You had no throat left at the end
      (the paraquat
      took care of that)
but the music of you had stopped, long before 
you dissolved
      the voice you could have used
to tell us how much life failed you.
 
I still don't know
     what you were waiting for.
Your inside was all full of holes no one could fix
but the logical song
repeats itself
against the huge senselessness of your going
and maybe
that’s reminiscing.

​

Ankh Spice is a poet from New Zealand, obsessed with the sea. He is a survivor of various asylums, including mental health facilities and a University where an English degree once happened despite him. He has tried unsuccessfully to hide the mess of his flayed-open heart, so feels like there’s little choice but to write about it. His poetry keeps breathing, even when it hurts, and is inspired by natural themes and images, and how difficult and beautiful it is for humans to keep putting one foot in front of the other (yet we do).

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