Selected Works, Tamiko Dooley

 Eros

are you here

again you love

can I see you

SHOWER TIME.

There are things you learn

From doing the same job every day

Tasks you repeat OVER and over

Like, aren’t we all the same?

Plugging in the hose 

The brushes out for meticulous scrubbing

Pulling the hazmat on MY legs

Elasticated cap, gloves, rubber boots

Nothing to be afraid of

They’re already DEAD

Pressure-wash them down

Blast that Stravinsky, something dramatic 

Vaseline in the nostrils

Doesn’t help with the smell

You leave, throw away the suit

The smell penetrates through

When you take a shower that night

You sniff it on your skin

So you scour your naked BODY clean

I mean, 

Isn’t that what you’ve been doing all day, anyway?

Helios

On a bright autumnal afternoon

When the sun’s behind me

And my back begins to warm

I think of you

That shaft of afternoon light

That used to reach the middle of your bedsheets

College house, single dorm

Your desk lumbered with

Tacitus and Virgil, Sallust and Homer

On a Friday after double Greek was done

I’d find you there

Eyes closed, smiling

Your skin glowing

When I leaned in towards you

The heat would hit the nape of my neck

With the strength of blazing rays

That scorched Icarus’ wings

To slowly melt the wax.

Tokeru (Melting)

you watched me catch with my tongue

the drips that threatened to

slither down the cone onto my hand

and laughed, kimi ga waratta

ahead kite surfers and jet skis roared across the Okinawa skyline

the Pacific tide was creeping towards our toes

waves pounding the shore louder and closer

and when you leaned towards me and

licked a drop of my matcha ice-cream 

to save it falling

the icy fingers of the umi gripped my legs

Tempest

I glimpsed you from the shore

Footprints leading to the water

Blurred sand and gritty salt

I had been stumbling through 

The thicket for hours

Losing my sense of direction

Aiming for the open sea

I kept thinking I saw you

In disguise, hidden behind palm leaves

When the branches finally parted

You appeared

Waving from your broken boat

A battered shipwreck

It started to rain 

As the drops began to lash down on me

It became harder to see

The wind seemed to take you away

I thought I saw you

Blurred and gritty drops

Began to sting my eyes

I was losing my sense of direction

I glimpsed you from the shore

A shipwreck

Aiming for the open sea

Tamiko reads Latin and French at New College, Oxford. She was the winner of the BBC Radio 3 carol competition 2021.