Poems by Christine Broe

Breakfasting with Dreams

Birdsong.
Scraps of dreams remembered.
I place one foot, then the other, on the floor.

Outside in the first light of breaking day
dew lies on the discarded squashed remains
of suppers bought from greasy chipper vans,
and mist will blend with fumes of car exhausts
as workers crawl from sleepy dormer towns.

But dew and mist are genes of water words
like drip and drop and rain and flood and sea
so comforted I make some toast and tea
humming words like seed and sow and yellow wheat
and grind and flour and bake and break and eat.

I slipper round the kitchen with these words
and on the window sill leave crumbs for birds,
carbohydrates to augment the early worms.

Then as the sun shines through the marmalade
I butter toast with golden spreads of dreams,
image fragments I have salvaged from the night

so I can go and face the world once more,
put one foot, then the other, out the door.

Breakfasting with Dreams is © Christine Broe

A Decent Full Stop

There are enough words in the world,
more than enough,
when all that is necessary
communicates itself in silence.

Should the sparkle of a sapphire speak
Or be some window in your eye
that tells of love?

The script is done.
You have said all you will say.
I listen to the pregnant silence
for sudden intakes of breath.
Sighs.

Silent mother
I am learning
to live with the absence

with a language beyond
even that between the lines.

We walk together,
I synchronise my steps to yours,
From garden gate to garden gate
Sealed with cobwebs.

You touch the locks.

Scents of flowers caress us,
sitting in the sun
when your hand unbidden reaches out,
catches mine
and we are joined to everything.

A Decent Full Stop is © Christine Broe