In pieces
An area of woodland near Stainham is still cordoned off while the police search continues. We interviewed a recently resigned counsellor at the Wholeness Centre who believes her story may shed light on the case. – Stainham Herald, 2014
Could there have been a kidnapping? A murder?
I listened to his muddled account, uneasy.
Confidentiality has limits.
My phone was itching in my pocket, waiting
to dial the police as soon he was gone,
the panic button ready under my seat.
But what, if anything, had really happened?
There was no shortage of activity
inside his head. His emotions flickered
across his face, a jerky, grainy film
distorting his blunt features as his words
tumbled across the room. I picked them up
and placed them on the coffee table between us
trying to sequence them, inviting his help
as you’d invite a child to persevere
with a jigsaw, but his mind was scattered:
he fidgeted and glanced around, shivered.
A dismemberment, he said. This body –
dead? Concealed? A nightmare in his head?
He wanted to take me to his car outside,
and open the boot, but our job is to listen,
not intervene. And then it dawned on me:
he was the victim and the perpetrator.
He’d stolen his own life and buried it.
Something about the Stainham woods, a spade:
he needed to undo it all, he said.
We made an appointment for the following day.
I met my supervisor in the kitchen
over coffee, but couldn’t find the words.
Alone, I checked the kitchen cupboards, though
I knew it was beyond ridiculous,
his claim to have stashed himself in bits and pieces.
The narrow room was getting colder, darker.
I looked out of the window on the car park:
right there, the rear door of a hatchback, open.
I saw myself inside, trussed up and gagged.
One of me was shaking. I felt a hand
on my shoulder. My supervisor led me
gently to her office. She had the kind
of jigsaw we use with children on the table.
I could see my face in it, in pieces.
Join them up, she said. I tried and tried.
We walked out to his car. Keys in the lock.
My supervisor drove me home in it,
and helped me carry my body up the stairs
into my bedroom. We laid it on the bed;
I lay beside it. She turned out the light
and promised me she’d guard the door all night.
This is the corrected version of the poem printed on pp.118-119 of A Place to Keep My Shadow, 1st edition.
There is another misprint on p.87: the final line of ‘The earth, the sea, and the human spirit…’ should read:
And screams that she can’t take it, gives a roar.
If you spot any other suspected misprints, please let me know.
Short URL for this page: is.gd/dahavu