Two Poems

Infallible Targets

It’s on the (minor) way back

of the hand, from putting onto shelf,

into fridge, that other things like bowls

of sentimental value and

delicate target jugs get brushed,

teeter and fall four feet for

a long time because it is their fate

and smash despite the last-second

manoeuvrings of our feet because

we are not the prehensiles we were.

It is on the minor way

back down mountain, in the failing

light after a great success

against the summit’s champagne

sky, on the long col between

achieving and rest, in the gullies

of infrangible rock strung with

snow at its most dark-apparent,

that we slip and hurtle and die.

It was on the minor way back.

Coddled

Sleep is very much what you want when you’re happy

and when you’re unhappy. It’s the one event

totally as good as anticipated, every

time (at long last in the dark, almost un‑

believably, I climb in). Sometimes on waking

I notwithstanding need to put daylight

between me and a nightmare. Conversely, dreamt

lately of a phrase that had to be skewered, coddled

and brought to the day, by repeating: Skydive

From The Pulpit. Excuse me? Underslept, now,

(dignity the last to be restored) means a stream

of jokes, so-so till dusk. But when it’s all cloudy

on holiday in the car, same tendency—attracting

same slagging off, from her. Still, as they sleep

a woman holds a man, overheating and causing

him to have a bad dream of their separation.

Which vanishes as soon as she rolls away and

they are together again, thank you very much.

Sebastian Schloessingk