Jo Brandon is based in West Yorkshire. Her pamphlet Phobia and full-length collection, The Learned Goose, are both published by Valley Press. Her next collection, Cures, is due out in 2020. Her work has been published in a number of magazines and anthologies, including The North, Magma, Popshot, Strix, Butchers Dog and The Fenland Reed. You can find her at www.jobrandon.com
The Learned Goose is available to buy from Valley Press.
The Fall
After ‘The Fall’, Hugo van de Goes, 1479
He was happy with my form
till he happened across yours.
Like any child the impulse is to play
not make; your limbs it seems
are more pliable and your hearts
more intricate.
So the fact that I could wind myself
into circles that inspired the sun,
tie myself into copulative knots,
make language in the sand,
meant nothing but more possibilities for you.
We lived together a good while – you wished
your tongue could read the air like mine,
I wished my eyes could talk.
We grew further apart.
Your hisses became syllabic,
you whispered to one another.
Tried to meet you in the middle:
hid in bushes growing legs
that lent no length, couldn’t bring me
any closer to your ear.
My face craved reflection,
stung with unread frowns and smiles.
I wish, I wish it were as simple
as a piece of fruit.
Truthfully, there was no taboo
hanging from that tree –
it was just where we played,
but your ideas grew quicker than trees
and you imagined fruits
that would never grow here
and they still won’t grow here
just as I don’t grow and everything
without you stays the same.
Jo Brandon
Previously published in The Learned Goose by Jo Brandon (Valley Press, 2015)
