20 FEBRUARY 1988, Page 32

Waking in the Garden

I think I know where I am.

A rumbling train shivers the ants in the grass, a branch shifts and groans, my cheek is creased by a rug of folded hills.

I cannot make my eyes open.

Someone may be near me.

A voice cries 'havoc' - but who would use such a word?

My heart knocks — the only part of me which can move.

A doll I had once would not open her eyes; her blind lids where shellac pink and blank as insolence.

We punished and punished her.

In the silver distance

glasses ring with laughter. Music spools out of a window and is pulled back in again. I concentrate my will -

prise open a crack of light which falls on the yolk of a daisy, on the mountainous pores of my arm, on a gargantuan hand which flexes itself in the grass.

Connie Bensley