THE LOCKER

This was written on a plane to Bangalore in March. I find I write compulsively while in transit, either out of boredom or just a sense of weightlessness, of the unsaid but sure knowledge that nothing is required of me until I arrive. I also find I tend to revise poems as I copy them down - from napkins and scraps onto pages, or from dirtied scratchings into a 'fair' version - so, this one has been revised a little bit and probably will be again until I'm tired of feeling imprecise.

The Locker

The face you wear is hairless,

no grace in your shapes;

your relief is no escape,

your body bends and shifts -

this landscape is not made of paper.

Later stones skim

over this gleaming mirror,

skip and shatter.

Ripples collide, rebel and return.

The sea is a surface where

men may read strange thoughts.

You, sailor boy, don't forget:

remember that mermaids

are sea-monsters too.

This face you wear does not care

to cast its shadow, 

but below these gaping waters

they all know your name.

Head up, young person. Head up.