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Winning poem in 2012 Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Competition

PIEMONTE RAIN

It rained in Turin late afternoon

and we felt vibrant, loving the city buzz.

Under porticos we weaved - dashed

an open torrent to Porto Nuovo station,

caught our train to Santhiá, disembarked

in drizzle warm enough to dance in.

Perhaps it was why we were so merry

over roast beef and polenta that night.

At bed time it began again, sudden,

percussive. It bombed us in Cavagliá,

and stunned festive fireworks

over the horizon.

It calmed, then stormed again.

I stepped onto the balcony. Below me

fan palms with meshed fingers guarded

their lung-like clusters of yellow blooms.

Sun in the morning - calm - bees returned.

I heard them bag gold from tiny stamens.

Spent flowers smaller than raindrops

buzzed, dropped, bounced on stone.

DEA NUTRIX

It was cot death, not my fault they said.

They, who didn't look deep enough

into my bitterness.

                            I smacked the head off

the figurine I'd made in class,

and dumped the rest in a High Street bin.

School clay, rubbed with my thumbs,

was picked at with tools.

Aged fourteen with a bun in the kiln,

I shaped a Dea Nutrix, a nursing goddess.

I scored for her a wicker chair, peeled, poked

pressed until I had a pair of suckling infants

at her breasts. I gave her such a hopeful face.

Fired and cooled, she weighed,

fitted my fingers, stayed with me -

was caressed.