Jessica Mookherjee
GHOSTS
I must write prayers for the dead today
as she looks around her and sees only three children.
She says there is another one somewhere, knocking
on the outline of a womb. She says write me a prayer.
I can’t write prayers for the dead, these days,
They are knocking on my door with a wild streak,
a sugar rush of urgency, I’m opening up, unbolting,
unlocking the doors, fumbling for the keys.
It’s a thin time, a skin is bursting and I’m scratching
my feet that want to barefoot into the garden
where my mother keeps looking for the child
she lost. Come inside. I whisper to her.
But I’m angry, I won’t write her a prayer for the dead.
I make demands, feed her sugared almonds, fatten
her with cow’s milk, try to change her. Must I
write these prayers to a child that doesn’t exist?
She doesn’t look into my eyes, glazed, distracted
by a barking dog. I don’t think the dead are far away,
she says. I am a ghost dressed like a person.
Won’t someone write me a prayer that I might appear?
THAT SPRING WHEN OUR FLAT EXPLODED
We’re in tight folds on Friday nights, with the TV on, something’s happening
in the States you say, and things change. Next, we day-to-day on the Essex Road.
That spring weekend I go to the beach with Kate, bring back dried sea-horses,
love tokens, offerings to ask you to carry our hopes in your belly
and you point to the TV, to tornados and strange rain in Waco, a small town
that could be Machynlleth or Soham, he’s gone too far for love, that man on TV…
And somewhere a man who would be god plays guitar in a T shirt and tight curls,
in a Texas shack, so Jesus-certain that there’s nothing in the way of love.
You say he’s looking for a holy grail like me, But he doesn’t care, if they die
dried up in his fire, I say, as the man on TV reads ancient texts on the news
to let the children leave. Later, in the pub you tell me it’s the end and I break
dried fish into bits, look for an exit, spawn myself in flames, wake
by gunshot. A car backfires as I getaway on the 73. I memorize routes
of escape, rote learn all the ways people kill and let babies burn to death.
THE PORTENT
One day he takes everything down, his beads and bangles, takes his face off.
Says nothing exists but you as he sits in the moon’s rays
and waits for the records to flip. One day she expects Comet West to appear,
from far North, shining and wild eyed, ready for the morning’s electric blue sky.
One day she stays up all night to watch his dazzle, tail spin and coma.
She sees him outgas, surpass himself as he unbuckles,
falls through leaves, flies to the horizon. Somewhere from a basement
he plays a guitar of rock dust, light pressure and water ice.
From earth her eyes dart from side to side to follow his blaze. He doesn’t see her
going cold, chart a course, find a map of space to point out
where he goes, all crazed on the radio waves. One day she makes sense
of his punch-drunk songs as he flies too near to the sun.
One day she might predict his return, burned out in a shower of meteorites.
One day she’ll take everything down, her naked eyes and records.
I must write prayers for the dead today
as she looks around her and sees only three children.
She says there is another one somewhere, knocking
on the outline of a womb. She says write me a prayer.
I can’t write prayers for the dead, these days,
They are knocking on my door with a wild streak,
a sugar rush of urgency, I’m opening up, unbolting,
unlocking the doors, fumbling for the keys.
It’s a thin time, a skin is bursting and I’m scratching
my feet that want to barefoot into the garden
where my mother keeps looking for the child
she lost. Come inside. I whisper to her.
But I’m angry, I won’t write her a prayer for the dead.
I make demands, feed her sugared almonds, fatten
her with cow’s milk, try to change her. Must I
write these prayers to a child that doesn’t exist?
She doesn’t look into my eyes, glazed, distracted
by a barking dog. I don’t think the dead are far away,
she says. I am a ghost dressed like a person.
Won’t someone write me a prayer that I might appear?
THAT SPRING WHEN OUR FLAT EXPLODED
We’re in tight folds on Friday nights, with the TV on, something’s happening
in the States you say, and things change. Next, we day-to-day on the Essex Road.
That spring weekend I go to the beach with Kate, bring back dried sea-horses,
love tokens, offerings to ask you to carry our hopes in your belly
and you point to the TV, to tornados and strange rain in Waco, a small town
that could be Machynlleth or Soham, he’s gone too far for love, that man on TV…
And somewhere a man who would be god plays guitar in a T shirt and tight curls,
in a Texas shack, so Jesus-certain that there’s nothing in the way of love.
You say he’s looking for a holy grail like me, But he doesn’t care, if they die
dried up in his fire, I say, as the man on TV reads ancient texts on the news
to let the children leave. Later, in the pub you tell me it’s the end and I break
dried fish into bits, look for an exit, spawn myself in flames, wake
by gunshot. A car backfires as I getaway on the 73. I memorize routes
of escape, rote learn all the ways people kill and let babies burn to death.
THE PORTENT
One day he takes everything down, his beads and bangles, takes his face off.
Says nothing exists but you as he sits in the moon’s rays
and waits for the records to flip. One day she expects Comet West to appear,
from far North, shining and wild eyed, ready for the morning’s electric blue sky.
One day she stays up all night to watch his dazzle, tail spin and coma.
She sees him outgas, surpass himself as he unbuckles,
falls through leaves, flies to the horizon. Somewhere from a basement
he plays a guitar of rock dust, light pressure and water ice.
From earth her eyes dart from side to side to follow his blaze. He doesn’t see her
going cold, chart a course, find a map of space to point out
where he goes, all crazed on the radio waves. One day she makes sense
of his punch-drunk songs as he flies too near to the sun.
One day she might predict his return, burned out in a shower of meteorites.
One day she’ll take everything down, her naked eyes and records.
© Copyright Jessica Mookherjee 2020
Jessica Mookherjee is a poet of Bengali origin. She grew up in Wales and London and now lives in Kent. She has been published in many print and online journals including Agenda, Interpreter’s House, The North, Rialto, Under the Radar and Antiphon, The Moth. Her pamphlets are The Swell (TellTale Press 2016) and Joyride (BLER Press 2017). Her poems appear in various anthologies including Eyewear’s Best of British and Irish Poets 2017 and Bloodaxe’s Staying Human and she was highly commended in the 2017 Forward Prize. Her first collection was published by Cultured Llama in 2018 and her second, Tigress, by Nine Arches in 2019. Her work has appeared previously in Molly Bloom 19.