He picks at the fray of her gaze
‘til she frowns. Sews shut her mouth

with too many questions.

We grow roots.

Sun shines hot through a tall window, and
she curls to me like vine.

We wind together, sway ‘til her small hands
whisper at the nape of my neck -

Finished, done.

Strutting shoes in dust and spit
The boys make their way in scented air
This is home to the gravel pits

The intercity snakes with a thwack and a hiss
Cuts through the night without a care
Strutting shoes in dust and spit

Dead-dogs in bags and lean stray cats
Bashed old cars with their smashed glass glare
This is home to the gravel pits

Toking butts he smiles, so fit
through smoke with eyes that stir, arms bare
Strutting shoes in dust and spit

Then with cuts and grazes running, swinging sticks
A skirmish with the out-group, ****** warfare
This is home to the gravel pits

I stand here, look back and see it-
Turning for home in the cooled night air
Strutting shoes in dust and spit
This was home to the gravel pits

There is water here
raging, churning water here

There is sea here
Sea like love is here

The sea is voyage
Is pilgrimage, like love

Annihilation
Like love

Is wonder, and terror
Like love

Is wreck and scour
Like love

Is myth and cold
And suffocating  depths

Like love

I am afraid of the sea
Afraid of the sea

The terrifying annihilating sea
Like love

I am afraid

Is
this
all
working out

better

in another dimension

Hidden giver, sighing life into fields of
Wheat’s ears, rolling tide-like to meet the rusted gate of cracked through orange-ore, resting ajar, guarding the hedge line

Arms out, splaying fingers I divine life here-
God’s flame, burning Barakah, sacred zephyr
warming  fingers, frosted with tired life help them loosen and live bright

Beating heart blush out my blood
Then rest then rest then rest then rest

Cresting waves crash on my shore
Recede recede recede recede

Howling gale you lash at me
Then breathe then breathe then breathe then breathe

Universe you stream away
Return return return return

In life we fill then die away
In darkness our constricted iris widens

Our life , like a time-lapse nature film plays out:
We grow, we wilt
We bolt and quiver to life
Then stagger back to earth
Eaten up to live again

Everywhere this motif
As humble as the bloat in the frog's throat
Systole, diastole
Our beating hearts our gasping breaths
Onwards, always, our lives lived outwards
Filled at rest

Before, I couldn’t see you
I would write about your eyes
Your smile
Your hair
All cliche, all flat
I couldn’t write
How I tried
Now I see you...

I see a green mantis
I see your freckled patina in that photo with the perfect light
I see you engaging the waiter in conversation
I see your long limbs loosely crossed
Cradling your herbal tea and segmenting your orange
I see you

The soft nape of your neck is in my dreams

I see you swimming ahead in the river,
I see your joy in that, and remember me needing to turn back
I see us crouched on the railway sleeper,
The last of the sun crossing us
While the washing up waits
The beer dries on our lips
We sit looking back at your home

I see the young and sexless person you told me about
Your nose in a book on the family holiday

I see the flicker of self-doubt
the slow rising tear that doesn’t spill over
being all things,
mother, worker, friend, lover

I see all the things you are not
that I projected onto you
Now I see you