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Miles Cain
Coffee
Lip to neck and arse by thigh,
we almost choked on each other,
our breath ferocious in a war
to stay human.
I was starving for home.
The smells stayed immobile
in groaning air. Human debris
and the reek of coffee.
We murmured in darkness,
creaked with the timbers,
craved a hard breeze.
When they let us on deck
we filled it like flies
at the eye of a horse.
Tongues swollen,
eyes shrunk,
the waves were tempting.
After docking,
we were shoved, bossed,
dressed up, starched.
Groomed for parlours,
we stood in shadowed rooms,
kept tight in cuffs and collars.
I waited near tables,
poured coffee
into pale cups and thought
of skin and coins.
I served it with silver spoons to
giggling ladies
with small and pretty eyes.
I saw the floor,
remembered my fine brother,
his bold face. His big hands.
I thought of winds twitching at the shore,
the heat in the plantation,
the sun on bare leaves.
The distance between
covered truth and blinding sorrow.
Who fetches coffee
and who drinks it.
Enemy Funeral
After the planes had gone,
and the supply trucks skidded north
towards the city,
we arrived and gathered what remained
amongst the charcoal and ash,
cradled them in our arms,
and pushed them into a neat pile.
The sergeant swamped fixed mouths
and bleached navels
with gasoline,
spat and flipped his lighter.
We shuffled back a little
as eyeballs clicked and bones boomed.
Otherwise, they kept quiet.
We were grateful for the pure heat
of the desert afternoon.
With some of the ashes that remained
the sergeant brewed coffee
and we passed a cup around.
We licked our lips
and looked at the horizon.
There were piles like this one in the distance –
bent spirals of smoke
marking a border of a kind.
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Poems
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Miles
Cain is the Writer and Presenter, Next Week's
News, BBC Radio York. He is a Freelance writer,
researcher, storyteller, musician and Winner, 2008
Slipstream Poets Competition. These two poems by
Miles Cain; "Coffee" and "Enemy Funeral" won the
First and Second Prizes respectively in the Sentinel
Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition (July 2009) -
a total of £160.00 in Prize Money. 