Mark Goodwin

Hedgerow & Urinal

Bliss


The breeze pulls vapours, pulls
                                        moist clues from your
pores. Drops of dew hold
                            hedgerow-shades and sky; wink
contained
        expanse. Hawthorn buds are sore;
poke
   pinky-green; gleam
                   when wet rests
                                on them. Stinks
of all kinds rise
              from the ditch and patches of
plants' scuffed and crushed stems: sense scented; roots
of wild lives distilled, leaked, spread
                                through move-
ments; reliefs or blood-claims; feral truths.
Squat. Ground pulls
                   a thread from between your legs;
it tickles
     in your kidneys. You breathe
                                          deep; sigh
as your glistening stream connects
                                             with grass. Feg
dampened exudes
                   its scent mixed with yours. Why
the waters, the drips, the dew, grow
                                                      is clear
tinged
      green, yellow or with soil. (But's obscured
                                                                 by fear.)




Crisis

Unzip. Stand still. (Feel
                           you're being watched.) Aim
your soft pipe towards the shared urinal.
See
   your rivulet of urine, your name
written
   in streaked yellow liquid, your self's smell
meet
   an other's piss: mix
                           frothily and swirl
between green cubes down
                                the drain hole. The glug,
as your last drink's waste goes
                                      to a plural world,

is the piss-take belch of an underground glutton.

No one's kissed your kidneys; touched
                                             the place where,
in secret, your identity's solubles
are distilled —
      it's your interior.
Yet now you plunge
                  you into the communal

pool. The public latrine's mixed stink's
millions linked. Think!Think!Think!Think!Think!Think!Think!