My Vellum

Alluring and demure
In your virginity
Never yet
Creased nor crumpled
Your tight young corners
Remain stiff and pert
In their newness
Your long lithe sides
Tense for my careful touch
Lest blood be spilt

My gold nib
I dip
In midnight ink
Piercing its surface skin
And lift

It drips
One

Two

Black
Secrets
Back to their bottle

My hand is poised
Over your pristine smoothness
And with calm precision
I carve broad majuscules
That twist and cut
To hairlines of breathtaking
Intimate intricacy

Quick teasing serifs
Long lingering descenders
Strokes of tactile
Joy

Then stand back

Empty
In wonder at
Your calligraphic beauty

The end was tranquil
Her eyes remained open wide
To mirror my tears

We sit cross-legged in the story corner
Breathing faint ammonia smells.
Table chants and hymns echo through corridor acoustics,
All creatures great and small.

We are wedged in a tangle of podgy thighs,
Grazed knees, scabs and warts.

And Anthony is sitting alone again
Where he can do no harm.

Yet he said he would bring it, and bring it he has.
Its tiny white head is nosing over
The  hem of his pocket,
Whiskers a-twitch and
Eyes like tiny blood blisters ripe for popping.

A shudder of shivering whispers and
Nervous heads are half turned:

Yes, Anthony is smiling his special smile.

Mrs Lloyd has found the page,
My lids are squeezed tight
As I urge my mind to follow her away
From here, away from now.

For playtime will be ****** once again.

The snow has a way of making everything look so god-**** beautiful
I think because it covers up everything
*****
everything grey
So come lie down here with me baby
We'll let the snow wipe it all away
There's a numb before death
hypothermia
this peace I hear
euphoria and you slip away
what could be better?
Come lay here next to me?
Your'e always saying how your lung's are on fire
So come sit in the cold with me
We're in heaven if you try not to move darling
We can pretend we're laying on clouds
And sure its cold now
But nothing beautiful was ever
free
Not in death nor dignity

So we lay in a field of white
And watched the angels throw down peices their forgiving
wings from the sky
As it touched our faces and melted
But you got up and walked away from me
Left me in a field of minus thirty degrees
In a place between life and death
I will always be waiting for you
Paralysed between sheets of white
To warm my shaking hands
My trembling heart
that
    no
       longer
              beats
                    for
                         you

You always were the drowning type