On the news
the language on the vehicles changed
from the ignored alphabets
to those we sort of got:
to ambulanza
then l’ambulance
to ambulance
to ambiwlans
to carbad-eiridinn
to otharcharr
to ours

We were once well acquainted
with the wee small hours
adept at navigating neon jungles
and the deeps of kitchen philosophies
entwined with kebabs and illicit frissons,  
in vino veritas conspiracies
that took weeks to unpick and apologise for
but passed

Now, if seen, those hours hold different snags,
surrounding plants are far less exotic
but familiar brambles cut deep,
immutable truths roar
when the ***** doesn’t do the talking
and morning burrs not so easily dislodged
by a full English and a million teas

Next to me was this one
and her feet were never still
she twirled and span through contretemps
and likely always will

That one had intensity
but never said a word
from blackened fingered canvases
his voice could still be heard

These two stood in spotlights
and held everyone in thrall
performing other’s stories,
their own a quieted call

And the group raised up their voices
which entwined and fit so well
and the chorus spoke of everything
they’d never usually tell

These memories, these children,
who moved, who drew, who showed,
who sang unguarded clarity
while the emptiness bellowed

Used to have us allies
used to have us care,
now, become statistics
now, are never there

Sing me a song of now
to hear what it sounds like

Broken rhythms and discords
or a bitter battled harmony?

I have my feet to stomp
and will whistle and holler free

To reach ears, hidden and open
all shaped the same

What’s left lingers on me,
your smell on my fingers,
my hair, my chafed skin,
my well washed shirts

and I could wash
I could
I know

I never knew essential
meant impossible to be without
until the scent began to fade

The smell of you,
an impossibly intense run of ones and zeroes
converted to map your DNA
G A T T A C G A...
like everyone and no one

Forbidden skin folds, slickly hidden,
I carried with me
with some half lies that helped
keep everything off radar
‘til ready

Cottoning on to the lost in me
with fingers and caresses,
blessing a gleeful wink of grins
to an adulthood
that refused to begin,
and refuses still

Wet grass caps toes,
a long missed inconvenience,
each pace lifting
weight long loved

The dappled, leaf stopped light
tries to placate,
but you won’t stay

Like time and tide
you wipe your face clean
and disappear through trees
with no trail

I shot the breeze today
with crickets, beetles,
spiders and caterpillars,
we held a moot.

Each representative, a voice:
words in the clamour
to be heard

In these lands of
many common grasses,
breeze told anecdotes,
arachnid needs
and insect calls for attention
often get ignored

Stopping to sit,
look through clutches of eyes,
sing with rattled wings
and chew cud,
can help retune the din
to be cleanly heard

The bittersweet blast
of ending another
another one.

Weird, unnatural, irrational.

Mixing maudlin with
the electric buzz of new beginnings,
we will drink and sleep,
cheap grins on our faces
‘til we’re adrift in three week’s time.

These days and friends are mine.

Bewildered by the difference,
the vast, unknown shape of it all

Not moments before,
ensconced in familiar tangles,
routinely fed and tended by parents
who flared and chattered
at the merest prospect of a threat,
met only by bolshy robins
who scoffed at fear
and tumbles of sparrows
who hid in each other

This necessary, Hail Mary leap
sees me petrified
grounded at the foot
of an adulthood full of flight,
song and the weight of freedom

if I can just get through
these cat clawed days and nights