Tonight's Poet Corner: A Small History
A Small History by Belinda Roddie My future walks behind me; my past lies still ahead. The underbelly of Atlantis is exposed despite the rising sea waters. It is scraped raw and pink from thousands of years of exposure to salt and seaweed. I will sail to the underwater kingdom. I will towel off its shivering naked body with the sun wrapped up in a windy shawl. In the period between life and death, I shall dig the tunnel to the light deeper and wider, and shape the bones with my sharp hands, my angular hands, pointed like shovel blades as they pierce the inner cheeks of God's mouth. Accidentally, I rupture two canker sores, and Heaven is covered in yellow and white, thin membrane to keep the angels in. I am no time traveler by trade: I do not wander backward in my years. Instead, it's as if my childhood stories are reborn in the tales of my own children - even the bad ones, the ones that have thorns and scratch out the eyes of the prince as he aimles