Art Work

I
She saves nail-clippings
– shades of pink – in an empty bottle
of Breck shampoo, decants
hundreds and thousands into tiny jars
with cut-glass stoppers. She stores
onion skins, shrivelled mushrooms
and a phial of mercury in drawers either side
of her dressing-table mirror.
II
She has a whole suitcase of shoes
(with the section removed for hanging suits)
– wedges, ankle-straps, peep-toes, sling-backs
with detachable bows; Anello and Davide
one-bars (from London, cash
on delivery); designs a costume – shoes
dangle from her shoulders, her face
is the sole of a shoe – spends a week
sewing sequins round a ball of cloth, burns
matchsticks in an apple-core,
sticks pins in Vaseline. 
III
From Lewis’ she buys a small man
in a black suit, places him
on a miniature sewing machine under
where the needle would be; sinks him
in ox-blood shoe polish creating
an earthquake; surrounds it
in fake flies. She props him behind
a red cross amongst the Listerine
and antiseptic, stores him in a long box
covered in crepe paper, closes
the lid. She has more
than one of him
IV
Melting wax ground on polished zinc,
she blackens the surface with the tip
of a flame, scratches into it
with the point of a needle; bites
the exposed metal in a bath
of Nitric acid, feathering away
the bubbles. She likes how her printed images
are back to front. At her final show
she displays in a posh case,
a papoose about an inch long
with bead eyes. She gives an apple
to the external examiner.
V
She begins without an idea;
a freshly grounded etching plate, hard
and unblemished. The first mark she makes
is not in an obvious place, central say,
or two thirds down, it merely is, as though
it has landed from the sky. She lets it be, uncovering
raising to the surface. Sometimes she recognises
the heel of a shoe, a pair of scissors
and so on; from a bow
comes the hair it is tied to, the side
of a face, a torso, the arm
of a chair, a lamp maybe,
a chest of drawers. 

from ‘The beating of wings’ (Hearing Eye 2006)