JESSICA WOOD – YORKSHIRE

 

 

I Come From

 

I am more than I know,

but right now I come from,

 

Millennium, a house with nine bedrooms

that bustled then burst into fireworks.

 

I come from the desperate twisting of limbs,

searching for the black outline where

I was etched onto this page.

 

I come from ancestral love, puffing itself

out, then released, like air from a balloon

into fireside circles and hushed murmurings,

muffled words.

 

From reckless wandering; collecting scraps

of change flung from bright yellow jeeps,

wages, for our street show of funny faces.

 

From creeping past boundaries & gathering

golf balls to mark distances and conkers that

harden in the years between.

 

From echoes of granddad, the

songs we sing that he first taught us and

the way, silent now, he fills us instead with money,

food and toothless smiles.

 

I come from the space inside closed eyelids,

when you push your eyes deep into the sockets,

for no reason than to renew your vision.

 

I come from afternoons sitting in dappled sun

light that looks how wind chimes sound

and from infinite possibilities held in the

palm of predetermined actions.

 

I come from the idea of cause and effect

I come from all the

‘I come froms’ that have yet to wash over me.