Heart
Impatient, our first afternoon
We boot straight up, waterproofs and rucksack
strike out through the mizzle, up from Parkergate,
out along the ridge of Ullock Pike
stickleback of false and teasing summits,
skin chilling as the cloud-mist settles
weaves and licks around the map, the dotted track
we hold but cannot see – Dodd Wood, the conifers
below to lead up down and back – so on we go,
higher, higher till it’s madness, too high, too far –
you’re finished, panting hard, hands on knees
for one full minute then you straighten, gasp, don’t worry
it’s ok, just my...heart murmur, and we stand there
whipped by rain, staring blankly like two lunatics –
Christ, I say, great time and place to mention it –
dissolving suddenly together into aching laughter
and now my own heart’s racing too, just from being
part of this, these streaming moments, skin numb,
rivulets for faces, alone and lost to everyone
but one another – helpless, weeping on the mountain
and you there in your rattling hood, brim-full of it.
More about André
André Mangeot lives and works in Cambridge. His first book, Natural Causes (Shoestring Press) was published in 2003 and reprinted the following year after highly positive reviews. A full-length collection, Mixer (Egg Box Press) came out in 2005.
He has won prizes in the Yorkshire, Kent & Sussex and Bridport competitions and was runner-up in the 2006 Wigtown/Scottish National poetry competition.
He is also a member of the performance group, ‘The Joy of Six’, which has performed across the UK and in New York.
André is currently preparing a third collection and writing a novel set in Romania.