Phil Wood- Three Poems

A Heart Tells All 

She likes to steam iron a trouser crease
to steer him through the day and if he's late
she buries keys beneath the basil pot.

She likes to clean the porcelain of dust
with a toothbrush; it hums as if a bee
has lost his queen within the buzz of hives.

She likes her lover tangled in spaghetti
on her fork; limbs as white as uncooked chips;
a distinct scent beneath the polished floor.



The Taste Of Fresh Strawberries
 
After that mosaic break-up
the fragments became useful
to plug the hole at the base -
a wedding vase does a job
in a pot of moist compost.
The heart of this dark matter,
opaque as the universe
with no trace of nebula,
rotted to a new purpose.
Like honeymoon bliss the roots
delved to sucking with glee
upon our fat memories
till the plant bore a plump fruit.



Ennui 

She signs with a cigarette, desires a light,
a ladder snakes her scarlet tights, from knee
to hem and hem to knee it gathers me.
Oh Jeannie why this lust for midnight tea?

In guessing games, beneath the candlelight,
we thread and bead and thread, our bodies fed,
her face too pure to wear that scarlet red.
Oh Jeannie why this lust for tea in bed?

This Sorrento night of tagliatelle delight
until I find a key, our hands now free
and then her smokers cough, my need to flee.
Oh Jeannie all lust ends in cups of tea.


Biography: Phil Wood works in a statistics office. He enjoys working with numbers and words. Published work can be found in various publications including: Clear Poetry, The Centrifugal Eye, London Grip, The Lampeter Review, the anthology Wherever You Roam (pub.Pankhearst).