The Telegraph Line
There was horror I carry a half-weight
as my portion and sleep when I can
For you brother tell me tell me of the north
as if we were there again as the younger man
that we were Tell me about the curling touch
the way that sparking fingers traced patterns
over years into you and yet their traces were
marked on my own skin
Tell me how you did that
how you survived her so well that you could talk
while I wore our map as a lake of mercury on me
which flowed south at the worst times surged
until I broke blood and in the high days froze
so that all who saw me smile remarked that
I wore the face of a dead The smile of relapse
I wore the electric pattern as if it were her lace her strap
each day a new message hurt its way through the lines
pain glowed new in me
Tell me how brother
Tell me how you had the nerve to live with yourself
knowing that in London I was doll to your tricks
could not swallow a meal but hate it could not feel you
lay yourself on her without my finding a blank partner
and spending the night trying to bring her to colour
attempting to lay my own cables inside her sensation
with the hope that some certain exchange might live
You tell me of peace No
Patrick Davidson Roberts was born in 1987 and grew up in Sunderland and Durham. He was editor of The Next Review magazine 2013-2017, co-founded Offord Road Books press in 2017 and reviews for The Poetry School. He is the author of The Mains (Vanguard Editions, 2018). In 2019 he ran All My Teachers, an all-women reading series.