Annie Fisher

So Much

Peel back your glove, touch green, touch grain,
Touch this good earth and then let go,
Touch wing, touch web, touch root and rain,
Peel back your glove, touch green, touch grain,
Touch bud, touch curl of leaf, touch vein,
Touch flint, touch fern, one flake of snow,
Peel back your glove, touch green, touch grain.
Touch this good earth; and then let go.

Published in ‘Infinite In All Perfections’ from Happenstance Press 2016

Boy

The skylight is a never-ending book. He wakes
to see a page of ghost-fish, feathers, chalky ferns.
A cockerel’s chanting its times tables out beyond
the orchard and that secret path between tall trees.
It’s a morning fit for otter, buzzard, beaver
and the sleek cat’s creep. Leaves, and things that scuttle
through the leaves, are rousing in the tunnelled lanes.
The hedgerows quiver with their living silences
and lost worlds shimmer in the rocks. Yesterday
he found an ammonite – a shiny, tight-ribbed spiral,
pyritised, no bigger than a peppercorn,
the histories of oceans coiled in his small hand.

Published in The Frogmore Papers and in ‘Infinite In All Perfections’ from Happenstance Press

Fledgling

Child-rearing: birds know all about it.
The blackbirds in the back yard
are frazzled from feeding
the fat, brown, idle fledgling
that squats on the low wall
between the dustbins and the garage.
I can’t stay here all night watching for next door’s cat.
That’s when I catch myself praying,
atheist at the kitchen window,
impotent as God.

Published in Angle poetry webzine and in ‘Infinite in All Perfections’ from Happenstance Press

The Deal

When I knew I was going to die
I walked up to the church in Easter sun,
past people shut inside
their quiet afternoons.

The church was locked
so I sat down
in the shade
and did a deal with God.

Daffodils bloomed everywhere.
Ridiculous
their born-again belief
in bulb and bud, in flower and leaf.

I walked among the graves
reading out the names
of those who’d died
before the age of sixty-five

and part of me looked down
on all of this—the vivid yellows
and sad greys, the little figure
moving through the graves.

I watched her walk back home
over the fields and stiles
clutching her wilting bunch
of promises and prayers.

Five years on (the daffodils
and symptoms both long gone)
I’m hazy on the details
of that afternoon.

Who promised what exactly?

And to whom?

Published in The Deal, HappenStance Press 2020

Puppets

Today we made old people out of plastic bottles
and glue and tissue paper and wool I was next to Gary 
I always sit next to Gary cos he can spell
Miss likes Gary even when he calls out but if I call out she goes
mental and we had to give our puppets names and a history so
Miss said to think about our grandparents      
but I don’t have a grandad and nans not old enough
for history and Gary said he was going to call his puppet Hitler
he gave it a moustache and a scar with blood and he said I could
call mine Gerbils but miss said we couldnt do animals
so I said mine was Henry Sweeting RIP cos I copied it off of a
grave when we went to the church
and Miss liked Henry Sweeting RIP
but when Gary said he was doing Hitler Miss didnt like it  
so she took Gary into the corridor
and when they came back Gary kicked his chair
but Miss didnt say anything
and then we had to say about our puppets round the class
so I said mine was called Henry Sweeting RIP and he liked curry
and Gary said his was called Ralf and he was
an ambulance driver in the war   
so then I said I thought he was Hitler  
but Gary said Hes Ralf  
I said Hitler would of been cool

 Published in Acumen magazine and in ‘Infinite In All Perfections’ from Happenstance Press

Bollard

I was twenty-one before I came to know
the word.
I, who loved the sound of
obfuscate, opaque, verisimilitude
had failed, somehow,
to stumble upon
bollard,

perhaps because the nuns
had balked at it,
finding it rude,
the double ‘L’s so brazenly erect,
intruding there
between the gasping vowels,
the o, the ah,
Bollard!

A blustery, pompous,
hot-potato-in-your-mouth sort of a word,
suited to the flabby lips
of large, moustachioed men:
Bollard, dear boy,
bollard.

A word that some might think
quite similar to bollock or to buttock,
but without the crispy bite of c and k,
the satisfying kick and click you find in, say
hillock, hammock, pillock, pollack,
Hackensack and Cadillac (which doesn’t have a k),

in little words like quick and lick
and flick and flak and flock and
fuck, I’m driving up a cul-de-sac…
BOLLARD!

Published in Obsessed with Pipework magazine and in ‘Infinite In All Perfections’ from Happenstance Press

Multiple-Choice Holiday Postcard

In   cathedral/ taxi/ trouble/ haste/ love/ clink
On   the plane/ the beach/ my back/ the run/ the brink
Waiting for   the bus/ the boat/ a life/ Godot/ a drink

Hotel    first class/ deluxe/ is almost built/ is bijou
Bedroom   is huge/ has views/ has rats / is canvas lean-to
Been bitten by   a tick/ mosquito/ spider/ adder/ emu

Was photographed with    monkey/ camel/ camera/ stranger/ waiter
Swam with    snorkel/ dolphins/ mobile phone/ tide/ alligator
See you    soon/ tomorrow/ one day/ never/ later

Published on Lighten Up Online webzine, issue 19