An orange
sits on top of a tossing sea of apples –
outcast.
She’s a grumpy grandmother,
aproned in dimpled buckskin.
A depressed old lady.
Her navel
is a brittle button
in a sagging buttonhole.
She waits to be lifted
in hammock hands
and placed like a queen
on a spotless plate.
Then an elegant set of fingers
could peel her,
dissect her,
enter the jagged segments
of her heart.
I was born in Wiltshire in 1959. My father was a builder and my mother a housewife. I attended one of the first comprehensive schools and loved school life. However, my ambition to be a journalist was viewed by the school as not being a suitable occupation for a woman! It took me a while to decide upon psychiatric nursing as an alternative career. I worked for many years in mental health, mostly with adolescents and their families.
After having my children, I enrolled at the local university. As I’d always danced and written poetry, I became increasingly interested in performance arts as a subject which allowed me to use both disciplines. After completing an MA in Fine and Media arts, I worked in a variety of creative roles: lecturer, dance development officer, and dance and drama practitioner for schools.
I’ve had poems published in a number of journals (I’m hampered by a tendency to keep my work hidden inside a box).
Over the last few years, I have been writing stories for children. This gives me hours of pleasure, but not a wage.
robin@artvilla.com