You once sat down on the wooden deck - actually many times - you and I.
Outside that old Italian shop - your father built it? And Nemo lived there. The cat.
And you muttered something about the moon eclipsing the sun - darling, what a metaphor
I strolled back there when the sky was grey - how do you tell if someone loved you
If they no longer love you - and you were six feet under - i couldn’t bear to sit alone,
Shivering, the remains of us in a ball of black and white fur curling around my feet
And it was cold, and there was a cat, so I guess i was not alone. So I sat.
A newspaper rustled
Inside my heart - of course, we were made of iron until you left me and i melted away
Into thin paper.
The deck was still thickly painted brown, and fresh England surrounds me but this Italy was an escape.
A cat by my feet so no excuse to go - and I’d never seen an eclipse but i felt one in my heart
A shadow in my rib cage, over the red pulsing thing, the size of my first,
The sky was still obviously grey and my heart thumping red and you always dead.
you have no capacity to love or smile - or breathe. And so I cannot ask you
If your heart was eclipsed by me. Were you - in love? Can i ask such a question
When you are six feet under, my darling, where is the sun? it seems to have been buried
With you in the grave. The cat had always been there when he visited the shop.
Your father? I don’t think he built it. Sometimes i am convinced we built that refuge out
Of nothing but stardust and wrinkles - was it real, my darling?
Time slips as i sit on the deck. Beneath me. You are beneath the ground.
Why does everything remind me of you and your laugh? The cat meows and I am
Bought back again. The past tugs me from the present and i tug myself back
A constant war. Treasure of my heart, there is nothing left in this place.
You have turned your arm to the stars in my memories
And i can recall the constellations, just like your name.