Jumper
 
The crowd took in a collective breath, fumbled
for mobile phones to catch her, net a fee from The Mail. 
A filmy red skirt inflated round her thighs
as if to slow her.  The sound when she met
the pavement was eggs breaking. 
 
He wanted it to be a stunt, a dummy thrown
from a window; stood for as long as it took
to clear her away, then shuffled home to his flat,
helped his girlfriend to put together spaghetti
and tomato sauce, started to tell her,
 
but couldn’t; found parmesan in the fridge,
scraped off its mould, remembered sodden sawdust
shovelled up into a van, toyed with his meal,
replayed the afternoon on a loop inside his head,
watched her futile parachute fill with air.


Interpreter
 
Her husband brought me a ripe mango
to thank me for translating the nurses’
sharp instructions into shrugs and smiles,
which seemed to help.  Our babies, wrapped
in blue and pink, yawned at us from their cots
in different languages.  I’d never tasted
a mango.  Its musky smell revolted me. 
 
Her son is sixteen now, sells knickers
in the Outdoor Market, has his mother’s
liquid eyes, twinkles at the girl behind
the fruit-and-veg stall’s polished rows
of mangos and papayas, piled-up
peppers, sweet potatoes, bitter gourds,
aubergines, grey-green lady’s fingers.