TOM BRANFOOT
Strings 2
‘about lighthouses not having to move to save a ship’
September 2024
from Muminent
since viewing the manuscript
I keep thinking about this erroneous
inscription Mum
repeated on the marbled endpaper page
bearing the Ex Libris
*
Mamucium
the Roman fort in Castlefield
from early Brittonic mamm meaning breast
or mamma for mother
associated with the local river goddess
*
despite the goodwill of archivists
it remains impossible to know
the actuality of one’s birth
when complications
coalesce with sedatives
there was blood
I was torn caesural from the womb
we both survived
in procedural infancy
caesarean sections were performed
exclusively on dying mothers
to increase the state population
disregarding the anecdote
Julius Caesar was born this way
its nominative origin
comes from the Latin verb
caedare, meaning cut or hewn
*
Mum this is what I call you
informally resonant
as our class determines
contrasting its other definition
as silent
this root sound of all language
tethering the prelinguistic with ghosts
*
at university in the city
she rang me after lectures, drunk
in the undertows of grief
her father and partner died months apart
palliated in beeping living rooms
white wined and manic, keening
down the phone to her only begotten son
each midday phone call took its toll
hollowed me like a nave
the calls gradually subsided
I turned her name over at the pub
flooded with wet friends
Thank you to my little heart
Pressurised as a can of worms, the carriage
thumps against greasy dendrites imprinted
on the window. The light is dying and today
that’s enough to puncture the terse
and leathery organ of hardship. But not
enough for tomorrow. Heart beating
with the ancient energy of horses
relentless and impervious
to breathwork. There is another social level
below secure jobs and stable incomes
vulnerable to shocks and exposed
to uncertainty, it has the pounding
heart of every madding farmer.
Sorry that the train is rammed
it’s not an ideal situation, granted, but let’s stay
safe, the conductor announces on
an uncancelled service. Cruise control
set to unmanageable levels of flux.
This will be the worst summer you ever have.
Once I saw a sunlit field
filled with lambent bunnies, it lodged into
my heart. The dying light grunts and tomorrow
blood pumps around the carriage like air
TOM BRANFOOT is a poet and critic from Bradford, and the writer-in-residence at Manchester Cathedral. He won a Northern Debut Award for Poetry in 2024 and the New Poets Prize 2022. He organises the poetry reading series More Song in Bradford. Tom is the author of I’ll Splinter (Pariah Press, 2021), This Is Not an Epiphany (Smith|Doorstop, 2023) and boar (Broken Sleep Books, 2023). He has written reviews and criticism for Poetry Review, Poetry London, Magma, Wild Court and elsewhere. His poems have been published by Bath Magg, SAND, Oxford Review of Books, and Berlin Lit among other publications.
