No men are islands, but some women are.

John Donne may have stated that no man is an island, but I’m sure that many women have felt like islands: lonely specks on the horizon, being lashed by rough seas. Gazing out across an empty ocean, waiting to be rescued. Ladies, if we could just see far enough, we would see that each island is just a stone’s throw from another. We are a sprawling archipelago of single women.

John Donne was right, though. No man is an island. Not the single men, anyway – they are driftwood. Floating in the seas, free but equally alone. Sometimes they wash up on an island, at the feet of a stranded female. Tired of the monotony of her empty beach, and of always drinking her coconut juice alone, the woman may be tempted to grab onto whatever piece of wood floats by. But we must be resolved. We must busy ourselves about the island, cooking fish over an open fire and even talking to volleyballs, because it’s better than settling for an eternity of drifting in the cold ocean, clinging uncertainly to a slippery bit of driftwood.

Sit on the beach, light your signal fire, and wait for your ship to come. Ladies, your ship is coming. And even if it passes you by, at least you’ll still be on your very own island, standing on solid ground. It may be lonely sometimes, but it’s yours.

Spheres

He pushed the cup around the counter.

‘Of course I like my life,’
he told the tabletop.
His grave eyes narrowed,
imploring me to stop.

He never smiled with all his face.

Opened up his law-books
and recited every word.
I put to him a question,
my zeal yet undeterred.

‘Don’t we all want something better?’

'On this flawed bit of earth,
in this bit of human mire,
isn’t everything we do
motivated by desire?

'A higher realm, a holier place…

'Some medieval men
saw the universe in spheres
that ground out divine sounds
too perfect for our ears.

'No one said that heaven was here.'

He shrugged and shook his head.
I knew my point was lost.
Deep dissatisfaction comes
from a chasm never crossed.

He never thought that heaven was here.

Driving

I can feel sleep creeping upon me,
threatening with oblivion.
My mind fights it like an ageing despot
refusing to retire, to become irrelevant,
convinced that the world will
fall to pieces in its absence.
I lean back in the passenger’s seat
and my mind whirrs on, unchecked.

Clouds sail on an urgent wind,
in the middle space between
the human scale and the infinite.
A shadow leaps onto a wall,
and for a moment all the lines are clear.
Then it is snatched away, and there is
only the blur of concrete.

We drive until it is dark,
until the street lights wink on.
The river’s black water betrays
the fluorescent inverted world.
Ruby, sapphire strata
stretch down to the depths,
spearing away from the land.

The overhead lights stripe
the dashboard yellow, flicking along
with metronome precision.
At the sound of street rushing
past beneath my feet,
my eyes close and I doze
like a fussing baby held close
by a tired mother.

Between slow, lengthening blinks,
I peer at the scenes swinging past.
A couple weaves its way
towards the city centre,
pinky fingers linked between them.
They have the languid gait of lovers.
Seagulls are wheeling in the air,
rising like a pale cloud
behind the darkness.
A man runs a hand through his hair,
standing with feet apart at the bus stop.

Glancing to my right,
I watch the capable hands
guiding the steering wheel.
Then, just the right song
crosses the radio.
The world eases by outside,
confident in itself.
Reassured by the constant motion,
my mind gives up control, slows,
and finally drifts into oblivion.