You Ask Me Where I Want to Live, My Love…
by Steve Pottinger
it can be the tundra, a desert, a forest, a boat
high on a mountain or out on the coast
an apartment, a terrace, a van or a castle,
a tent, yurt, or igloo, it really don’t matter
but it must be somewhere
where commuters stop and stand
to marvel at another sunset
and breathe for the first time that day
making a mental note to phone in sick in the morning
where the Daily Mail declares its compassion
knows no borders
champions the rights of asylum-seekers
elects a teenage single mom as editor
and proclaims the benefit system
is the mark of a society
not afraid to offer help to those in need
when she hears this news
Katie Hopkins looks like she’s swallowed a wasp
where politicians start speeches on British values
by saying they spent yesterday watching the grace
and beauty of swallows hunting over summer meadows
and they lost themselves in it for hours
and the speech never got written
and sod it, it was worth it
and what is this nationalistic flag-waving bullshit anyway?
and when we vote for them they say no thanks
they’d rather be watching the swallows
and why don’t we crack on with sorting things out ourselves
we’re more than capable of doing it without them
it can be a farmhouse, a mansion, an empty plot
a hot-air balloon or a racing yacht
in Lundy, Fastnet, German Bight
Trafalgar, Dogger, Cromarty, yep, all right
but it must be somewhere
where we never forget we pass this way but once
and every day is another shot at redemption
where the old and the weak and the dying
are wheeled out each evening
to feel the rain on their cheeks
in case they do not live to see the dawn
and each and every news bulletin starts
with images of the miracle of birth
to remind us what we’re doing here
where kids learn about poverty and homelessness
in history books and ask
Was slavery like dinosaurs, miss?
and when the teacher asks them to imagine
what it must have been like to bed down
cold and hungry and alone
Year 9 find it so distressing she has to send them out
into the playground to burn off their confusion
and over by the bike sheds
Sally gathers the others round
and makes them swear that if the grown-ups
ever invent a poverty again
they’ll give them extra double maths with Mr Jackson
till they promise to behave
and then they get back to playing kiss chase
and the playground rings with screams and laughter
it can be Glasgow, Cardiff, Westward Ho!
wherever it is, and wherever we go,
north-east Norwich, south-west Ayr
hell, Hull, Halifax, I don’t care
but it must be somewhere
with a bee-loud glade and a pub at hand
where we drink by firelight, sit with friends
talking laughing making plans
where we’re up every morning at dawn
walking through dew watching the sun
burn the mist off the gentle flowing river
or the rain hit the windows
or the snow fall
and all this won’t even cover the half of it
because we’ll be lying at night on grass
under a blanket
listening to cicadas,
feeling moths brush against our faces
looking up at stars so numerous we can’t begin
to count them
and you explain the big bang theory to me again
and I nod and say Uh-huh in all the right places
but we both know there’s no way I’m going
to get my head round it
I just think it looks fucking fantastic
where the world is filled with music
and the symphony of silence
for an audience of millions and an audience of one
where Simon Cowell is on gardening leave,
indefinitely
where we will make love every day
in the morning in the afternoon
whenever we bloody well want to
make love with tenderness and passion
and howling abandon
and lie in the cooling sweat of each other’s bodies
and want for nothing more
it can be the tundra, a desert, a forest, a boat
high on a mountain or out on the coast
an apartment, a terrace, a van or a castle,
a tent, yurt, or igloo, it really don’t matter
but it must –
and you’re right
I haven’t mentioned house prices
or the mortgage tracker index once, my love,
and I haven’t a clue whether the market
is bubbling, booming, or about to burst
but the truth is that every time I try
I feel a small part of me go belly up and die
and yes that isn’t very grown-up
and no it probably isn’t going to change
and all I can say in my defence
is that with a handful of cable ties
a couple of rolls of gaffa
and a modicum of judiciously applied brute force
I can fix pretty much anything
and in my world that make us quits
because it’s watching each other’s backs
and nurturing our abilities
and covering each other’s blind spots
that makes us strong
and that has to count for something
and this is where I want to live, my love,
with you, eating impossibilities for breakfast
growing old together
with time passing so slowly we barely notice
in a world we love still more each passing day
and where, when they wheel us out
into the soft gentle rain of our last evening
the memories will jostle and tumble
over each other like water
and when we close our eyes that night
we will believe that
we will wake next morning
to do it all again
that we’ll be laughing
and dancing
and dreaming
forever.
Steve Pottinger studied at Leeds University in the 1980s before embarking on a life making events happen and performing poetry. This poem is from his fourth collection More Bees Bigger Bonnets. His new collection Thirty-One Small Acts of Love and Resistance is out now and available from www.ignitebooks.co.uk.
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