Cauliflower Scans

• Cauliflower Scans

Cauliflower Scans

I have seen the photographs
The cauliflower scans
And tried to understand
The names of the proteins and the acids
And the color-coded calendar of dosages
And the red-pen notes of episodes

In muzak-quiet consulting rooms
Science has a story of the mind
I like his desk-clock at right angles
With the smooth imitation timber framed portrait
Of his daughter and his wife
And their smiling Labrador
And the way his driveway made a sound
Beneath our tyres like cracking rice bubbles
With a rolling pin through a paper bag

I have seen the cauliflower scans
And those mysterious holes
Like deep deep pools in the forest
Where no-one really knows how deep
And kids pushed in stolen shopping trolleys
And their brothers' bicycles tied to trees
And I still don't understand

On Tuesday I was Uncle Dave
With flowers for your wedding day and
Why did I not bring Kate?
Don't believe those things they say -
People can be so cruel -
I know that she's okay

I have seen the photographs of Uncle Dave on time
A bearded man stood in wait before the clinker brick
And blurred children running through the frame
And this is all we know of Uncle Dave

In labyrinthine corridors
Science has a story of the mind
And sat here in this safety room
With a tray of things you removed
From your pockets and your wrists

Here's a scuffed and faded face of a queen
A hairpin and a necklace
Sprawled around in the shape of an island I know
I've seen in an atlas but I didn't note its name
And in thirty years the sea
Will have reclaimed
And the sign upon the glass
Says "Please Wait"

© Brendan Bonsack
November 2013

1. The Sky that Came Before
2. Cauliflower Scans
3. When the Shovels Come to Find us
4. Weeds
5. Nineteen Sixty Nine
6. Bent Piano
7. Paper Dolls
8. Damned Poets
9. A Deep Forget
10. We Were Stones

The Sky that Came Before
Released November 2013