First of the Last Chances Read online

  God is nowhere. Now read again.

  (There is no supreme being. You might as well settle for a good book.)

  Metaphysical Villanelle

  ‘We may or may not cease to exist’ – conclusion of a long, late-night discussion about religion on an Arvon course at Lumb Bank

  We have argued for hours and this is the gist.

  After much confrontation, at last we agree:

  We may or may not cease to exist.

  First you scoffed at my view, then in turn I dismissed

  Your opinion, but now we’ve discovered the key.

  We have argued for hours and this is the gist:

  There is either a god or we’re all slightly pissed.

  Shall we compromise, since it’s now twenty to three?

  We may or may not cease to exist.

  If I weren’t so exhausted I might well insist

  That I’m right as a right-thinking person can be

  But we’ve argued for hours and this is the gist:

  We can all go to bed without fearing we’ve missed

  Some great spiritual truth. Melvyn’s got it, you see –

  We may or may not cease to exist.

  There isn’t a sub-text. There isn’t a twist

  And who cares? Who would like a Ryvita with Brie?

  We have argued for hours and this is the gist:

  We may or may not cease to exist.

  Squirrel’s the Word

  They’re rats with bushy tails, you claim.

  They bite and spread disease.

  Despite the reassuring name

  Of squirrel, they are wild, not tame,

  And they belong in trees.

  But there’s a squirrel that I know

  Who calls each day at nine,

  Catches the croissant that I throw

  And chomps it on the patio.

  I think of him as mine.

  He is both patient and polite

  While I prepare his meal.

  Squirrel’s the word and it’s the right

  Word in his case, in fact he’s quite

  The squirrelish ideal,

  So deconstruct him all you please

  To bushy tail and rat.

  Squirrel is still the name for these

  Creatures with squirrels’ qualities

  And he is just like that.

  First of the Last Chances

  I stand back as the Skipton train advances,

  having to choose too fast

  between the scorn and sympathetic glances

  of my supporting cast

  all of whom think boarding this train enhances

  my odds. I wave it past.

  If I don’t take the first of the last chances

  I will not fear the last.

  A Woman’s Life and Loves

  The next eight poems have been set to music by the composer Gabriel Jackson, and form a song cycle that was originally conceived as a contemporary response to the Schumann song cycle Frauenliebe und Leben.

  View

  I am not lonely. I pretend

  that I am here alone.

  I do not see your shuttered face

  or hear your monotone

  but stare instead at roads and fields

  and bridges and the sky

  and feel the sun’s rays on my face.

  However hard you try

  to substitute your view for mine,

  I see the things I see

  and am no longer here with you

  though you are here with me.

  Equals

  Each of my false apologies

  I retrospectively withdraw.

  Yes, there have been discrepancies

  Between my conduct and the law.

  I have done worse, I have done less

  Than promises would have me do,

  And as I cheat, as I transgress

  I do not give a thought to you.

  I sensed that you deserved it then

  But took the blame and looked contrite

  Before I did the same again,

  Thinking the wrong was mine by right

  And I enjoyed the risks I took,

  The tricks I played, the daily scam.

  I have done nothing by the book.

  When I professed to give a damn

  My smiles, my tears, my words were fake.

  Cut me in half; the core was bad

  And when you made your big mistake

  I can’t deny that I was glad

  To see, so newly justified

  By your descent from fair and true,

  The times I lied and lied and lied,

  As if I knew. As if I knew.

  Postcard

  The chances are that by the time you get

  This postcard, I’ll be home. I will have phoned,

  Arranged to meet you and we will have met.

  (That day, the day with nothing ruined yet,

  No hasty lust or lingering regret,

  Decisions and admissions all postponed,

  Will be the best we have.) I will have toned

  Down what I feel to pleasantries and owned

  Up to no thoughts of you beyond the set

  Formula: I admire your work. I bet

  You will have done the same.

  Grateful for this

  Chance to stay friends and keep our present lives,

  We will arrange another date and miss

  Another chance before this card arrives.

  Match

  Love has not made us good.

  We still do all the cynics said we would –

  Struggle like heroes searching for a war,

  Still want too much, and more.

  Love has not made us nice.

  Elders and betters with their best advice

  Can’t stir us from our loungers by the pool.

  We dodge all work like school,

  Leave urgent debts upaid,

  Cancel the solemn promises we’ve made

  If loyalties or circumstances change.

  Our thoughts are no less strange,

  But love has made us last.

  We do together all that in the past

  We did alone; err not as one but two

  And this is how I knew.

  Bridesmaid

  A smile or kiss is all you have to spare;

  Never a bed, a key, an inch of floor.

  All that I am, all that I have, I share,

  Yet I possess not half as much but more –

  Double, I swear,

  Though you remain unsure –

  Twice what I owned or hoped to own before.

  There is no metal weighing down your hand.

  You are not subject to the whims of kings

  And claim that you will never understand

  The pleasure or the point of two gold rings.

  For you no grand

  Passion waits in the wings

  Just your own space. A woman needs such things.

  Not me, I say. Of all the things to need,

  I choose another mind, another face,

  Someone of whom, if I were ever freed

  I would be tattered remnants or a trace.

  What awkward breed

  Would crave, would even chase

  What age and death will bring in any case?

  Test

  Not easy to relate

  This plastic stick, blue line,

  To an October date,

  A child who might be mine.

  Is the blue weak or strong?

  How loud the seconds tick

  With all that could go wrong.

  This blue line, plastic stick

  The packet says to use

  And then at once discard,

  Forgetting that to lose

  All that you have is hard

  And for a month or so

  This plastic stick, blue line

  Is all I’ll have to show

  For what it claims is mine.


  Charge

  My skin grows taut. What once was soft turns hard

  Like silk stretched thinly over sponge or shell.

  I count as many bullies in the yard

  As any school child desperate for the bell.

  Watching my body sprout its suit of arms

  Makes me aware of what I must protect,

  My charge, who nature won’t allow my charms

  Alone to guard, much less my intellect.

  I fear the notion that I need a shield

  But if I run, I’ll only rock the cage.

  As enemies advance across the field

  Cover is no safe substitute for rage.

  I am the bearer of a small élite.

  I wrap my arms around it in the night

  But can’t defend a king with my retreat

  Whose country is the stomach for a fight.

  Favourite

  Anyone who prefers the light

  Has not explored the dark.

  All those who miss the owl in flight

  Will lean towards the lark.

  She must have heard that Noah halved

  The pairs inside the ark

  And on its wooden side was carved

  The favourite child remark.

  I read the message, heard the cheers

  And saw the bright award.

  I sensed that down the miles and years

  A man was overboard,

  A man who had been left to drown

  And yet remained afloat.

  I rinsed the shell dust from my crown.

  He swam towards my boat.

  The sea is full of souvenirs:

  The splinters of the ark,

  Bent bottletops and leaking beers,

  Noah just one more shark.

  I chose the course that I preferred

  And will not disembark

  I set my compass when I heard

  The favourite child remark

  So see me now as cabin-hand,

  Captain or mutineer,

  The scourge or saviour of the land.

  I must be both to steer

  Free of this sea where, full of ploys,

  Old moons resent new suns.

  All of my children, girls and boys,

  Will be the favourite ones.

  About the Author

  SOPHIE HANNAH was born in Manchester in 1971. A former Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge and Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, she now lives in Bingley, West Yorkshire and teaches in the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. Sophie Hannah is the author of three bestselling collections of poetry, as well as three novels and several books for children.

  Also by Sophie Hannah

  Fiction

  Gripless

  Cordial and Corrosive

  The Superpower of Love

  Poetry

  The Hero and the Girl Next Door

  Hotels Like Houses

  Leaving and Leaving You

  The Box Room

  Translation

  The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain in 2003

  by Carcanet Press Ltd, Alliance House, 30 Cross Street, Manchester M2 7AQ

  This ebook edition first published in 2011

  All rights reserved

  © Sophie Hannah, 2003

  The right of Sophie Hannah to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  Epub ISBN 978–1–84777–873–4

  Mobi ISBN 978–1–84777–874–1