In front of me rows erupt.
Seats fold up on themselves
and bounce on the backs
with a desultory thud.
Applause blows through the hall,
hail on corrugated iron,
the flutter of hands
like a throng of moths
with unhinged wings.
 
All the colours of mud,
these ragbags of skin and sinew
let fall their histories
like mottled leaves in Autumn.
Ranks of paleness spotted with russet,
dense nutmeg, the sallowness of
marrow bones left for the dog;
all marked with their age, stained by
the boarded up windows of things past.
 
Little miracles of pigment,
I wonder what they touched last
leaving home. A child’s cheek perhaps,
soft wallet leather, a raw nerve,
the cool glass of a bottle, a tear.
It is by no means clear, their stories blur
like the ropes and veils of ink in water.
 
Some, no doubt, have been cruel,
handing out injuries easy as gutting a fish.
Their skin is pulled tight, husk like,
cloaked with smiles and a firm handshake,
extracts of tyrant in their tyrosine.
Despite their colours they are cormorant and crow
and two toned starlings drumming the air.
 
Others exhale a trickle of kindness,
they bear a faith in benevolent Gods
who, though tarnished, dart iridescence
of a million blues, a glimpse of Kingfisher
on a clear river.
 
And what colour are my own hands
as the space between them closes to a clap?
They are my share of pale fruit,
lined by all they’ve touched in shade and light.
I clasp them tight to end the sinister gap
of what cannot be undone.