I'll have roses,
daffodils, ivy
and snowdrops
in a bouquet
on my palette.

Slipping a taste
of one another,
a puddle is made.
It is murky like
hungover clouds

though now
with new regret
I understand
the mixing of
beautiful ideas

brings me pity
for my creation
formed through
pursuit of a dream
to a wretched being.

froths in lichen:
gushing on its bark,
it looks like pollen
was smeared on in
yellow gouache,
ulcers spread to lick
on to each branch.

I let it take over
in the way you
spread your arms
over bed and torso,
in the way your kiss
through the mornings
paint my cheeks red.

Opening my hand,
you read the lines
rooted in my palm

before

taking the fingers
to crook them.
They splinter

new

spines, grow
tall steeples
ringing out

like

church bells,
or wind chimes
once your fingers

touch.

We gave the
infant
our features;
the babe got
a bulb nose
passed on by
its grandfather,
jet-turf of hair
like a wave of
soft sulphur
from the other,
but the eyes,
tungsten grey
set in firm lids,
burnt out like
incandescent
light bulbs
as it left their
filament fingers
gasping mine.

Putting the receiver
to the cupped side
of my leaning face,
I'll listen to an old,
dead phone, a husk
with a sound echoing
inside like a seashell:

I tune into the static
as if they were waves
sweeping in and out
of my eardrum, hear
the whisper of voices
asking the operator
to pass on last sighs.

Semi-permeable
translucent vibes;
rhythm through
a château door
into neon nights,
and lanterns like
red-eye photos
look down on us.
They look down
on me, and they
see me shaking
the vibes out on
cement cobble-
blocks. I got the
cancer / excess
disease, we say
I'm the new-old
where the auto-
focus is good
but around us
is gaussian blur
forgotten future.

What you don't see
is the way I wait,
watching her braid
worries in her hair
speckling small daisies,
my eyes like tumblers
gulping her in swigs
as she perches glasses
on the arch of her nose,
and then we'll take
a photo
to remark on how
we were back then
and now.