If I write you a poem it will be too much
if I don't it won't be enough

If I give you something it will be too open
if I explain it will be too closed

If I mention strength and beauty you might run a mile
if I don't I won't have shared that inner smile
that might light your way a while

But if I name my dilemmas
you might see them as true
as true as I see you

Perhaps true
will do

I found a piece of China
said my son in his sleep
he was only little

Last night I found a piece of China too
under a Pisces new moon
I dropped into the cellar of my soul
under those dank dark vaults
I was surprised to find an ocean

It was all your doing

I thought my sorrow would drown us both
water lapping at the high Georgian ceiling
barely air to breathe
but you found those little orange armbands
and as the water started seeping under the old sash windows
past the poorly fitting door
into the streets below
you taught me how to swim

It is slow here
under the surface of a sunlit sea
seaweed swaying
and there on the bottom is my treasure chest at last
gold glowing
pearls trailing

If only I could show you
what then....

I do not know
the winters of your soul
or how your dog barks
at the end of a long night
on your return

I wish I did

I do not know what dawn looks like
to you
or if it has yet risen
The thin rays do not reach this far down
in the long grass

I only know
the beauty of the world under your gaze
and the weight of the crack that will form
when it goes

I'd like to get to know you
I'd like to gently knock upon your door and see who answers
I'd like to know if we are dancers you and I
I'd like to see us try because I'd like to get to know you

I'd like to get to know you in a different way
I'd like to take your hand and
I'd like to know your eyelashes against my lips
I'd like to know the contours of your hips
I'd like to trace those contours with my fingertips

I'd like to know the veins flowing up your arm
I'd like to cover the territory of your back with my palm
I'd like to get to know how you speak in your sleep
I'd like to know whether you look before you leap
I'd like to just drop down into the deep with you

I'd like to know the rhythms of your sea
I'd like to know how you might reach for me
I'd like to feel your eyes beyond my collar bone
I'd like to get to know what it's like for us to be alone together in a different way
I'd like to get to know your skin beyond the room we're in and be a capsule in your blood
not just sit here day by day and chew the cud

I mended an old nightshirt yesterday
white cotton, cuffs worn
frayed and torn
It came with me to hospital when you were born
fresh from its maker then too

It was such a shock
a complete surprise: you had my eyes
And a tiny heart attached to my soul
the midwife forgot that bit

For years it still held the scent
of newborn You
embalmed in a brand new being
your animal smell earthy and ancient
christening white cotton

They travel light cats
no one took much notice
tired from the week
the TV on
it's only a cat

Caged and wailing
a low strange hurt
an infant's cry
en route to his end
naked, covered in fur
that's all

A bag of food a litter tray
not much to his name
Plucked up and put down
in another home
where nothing remotely smells like Home
where nothing, nowhere, no-one's the same
or familiar
recognisable
known

Unmarked, unspecial
the departure of a cat
from all known
worlds

It didn't happen all at once
First they took my mother
I didn't feel it
she'd already left

Then they took my brother
That was harder

Then they took my land
First the mountains and crags
the elbows, the knees
then the branches and roots
the arms, the legs
all of it gone
just like that

Then came the invaders, the gropers, the raiders
they took the rest
maybe the best
How would I know?
I didn't even know it was there
I'd no time to take an inventory
I'd never seen the place

And so I became a floating head
dead
mid-air

It didn't happen all at once
But pray tell me how
rebellion
is not the right response