Poems

PLAYING WITH FIRE

He rang and said he’d visit
tho I was busy,
late now for a deadline:
but he worked metal too,
so, ever eager to pursue my passion
I said “My day is full,
but if you come at six
I’ll show you what I’m working on
and then make food.”

Arriving barefoot and in white,
he tiptoed down my thistled track
and my heart sank.

But I am big and brave and free
and I can handle this with ease –
I live alone with no one near,
I don’t know what it is to fear,
to be afraid of the unknown,
or to feel threatened in my home.

I cooked a meal – we ate, we drank,
we watched the sun go down
and talked til dark –
and while I hoped us friends,
he wanted sparks.

Because our trailers were the same
he’d thought to woo me:
because we shared a love of iron
he thought he knew me;
because he’d brought champagne
he thought he’d bought me.

And when it dawned this wasn’t so,
instead of getting up to go
he lost the plot: 

he stormed, he raged, he ranted –
a toddler tantrum in a full-grown man,
out of control, past reason
or of calming.

“If you play with fire,” he blazed,
“you know that you’ll get burnt. . .”


“But I work with fire,
I won’t play games,
I don’t get hurt:
I’ve learnt.”

He turned on me with flaming eyes –
I held his gaze. . .

. . . I held my breath. . .

then something broke. . .
he shrank inside –

- and left.

And though I’m big and brave and free
and I have handled much with ease,
I live alone with no one near –
I now know what it is to fear,
to be afraid of the unknown,
scared and threatened . . . 

. . . at home.