I want to plant my lips
in your dark curls. Red lips,
like the buckled shoes of
a child. A life at the beginning.
A name still finding it's rhythm
on the tongue.

We are like children.
Testing out words for size.

How big is 'I love you?'
How heavy is 'goodbye?'

The wishes of raindrops
led me to you -

a transparent pearl that
glistens on the petal of

a flower

teetering on the edges of
life, a kiss away from

falling

forgetting, forgotten in the folds
of earth

a ***** away from being dug
up, exposed like

a raw nerve. The calcium in
your bones

spread unevenly through
your spine

so that you must stoop
to touch me

I am a lion's tooth -
a flower blown on the whim of

a wish

At the beginning we were separate entities, two bodies walking home as the sun rose. Dancing till five on cheap cider and rancid wine.

We took breakfast in a ***** cafe, the kind where the coffee is bitter and there's a filthy spoon in the sugar bowl. Where there's an ashtray on every table despite a smoking ban.

You took my hand in yours as we left, and I made myself small enough to fit inside that stern grip, moulded myself like a glove around your long fingers.

When I look back, I remember the smell of tulips, a sweetness hung in the air. I rooted myself into you. I dug down until the core of the Earth shuddered beneath me.

Once planted, you watered me, weeded me. Cut out the diseased leaves that stunted me. I grew at your command. Tall, like a prize winning sunflower. The yellow petals of Spring, awakening.

You'd smoke in the morning and talk softly. A throwaway comment of there being no God. I didn't believe you. For I had held God in my mouth as we kissed, relished the taste of the forbidden fruit on your tongue.

Yes. I believed. In a God that you didn't but I felt when you touched me, softly, the folds of our flesh meeting, our two bodies, our seperate entities becoming

one

I thought I meant it,
thirty pills over three days
spaced out like the margins of
a book, double lined

shaken awake, I stir
like a cat roused from it's sleep,
stretching out the length of my body, arching my back, ready to attack

there is the needle, poking veins, collapsed veins that do not shed their blood easily, willingly

the tightness of a blood pressure band, constricting, heartbeat pulsing, ringing in my ears like titinus

the weight of near death, the long wait, internal quiet, external chaos

it breaks

no

(I didn't mean it.)

My heart is a grey sky
storm clouds forming in
the corners, in the blink of
an eye

I can touch tree tops
with rain drops, watering
green leaves when I am
a naked branch

I sit, solid body,
side by side with Heaven,
a black and white God

I consume stars,
their fire burning in the
pit of my stomach,

a warmth that has
replaced the heat
of your hand

in mine

One acid drop and I...

hallucinate the buildings
into beaches, the pavement
into the ocean

where we swam
naked, under stars,
whispering about
the hungry sky,

taking prisoners
of fire. You spoke
of the hierarchy
of flame, graded
by colour

(white flame is the hottest)

I placed a knife into the
hot white and passed it
onto you,

heard your flesh sizzle,
smelt your hair burn

killing the cells that touched me, plunged into my soft *******, pulled out my heart and stamped all over it

I learnt that night
that no amount
of love could
unbruise my
heart

he held me
as if I
were crystal
but I shattered
anyway

a kaleidoscope
of colours
twisting the
knife that

I plunged
into his
chest when
I said

I'm sorry
rolling away
from his
touch

another romance
blackened by
a memory

that lurks
like a creeper
in the bushes

it was
unexpected

we loved
unexpectedly

& I wonder what they're scanning for,

the grey shadows of my mind projected into pictures,

yet not.

I wait in the small, green room
it's plastic chairs and **** stained floor,

they hand me two pills, one pink like an *****, an ***** failure,

one white like the sheet they wrap around me, turning me into a ghost,

yet not.

They'll write my name on a chart, an ink stain that will never wash off

a tick box. Did you swallow? Are they hiding under your tongue?

dissolving into a metal taste that burns

like the sun

yet not.

I will get walks on Tuesday's, twenty minutes of grass and air

that I will drink, my thirst unquenchable

I'll get in line, shuffle in baggy clothes, watch television with a glassy stare,

eyes white and wide, a girl trapped inside (almost)

yet not.

I was like thunder
roaring for a lover,

a kiss on the base of
my neck, a muzzled
breath.

The room spins,
a gutfull of red wine,
an open window, blinds
billowing in the wind.

You tamed me, my wild
soul, roaming for a
home.

A memory stirs at your
touch, hands slipping
under shirts.

It was hunger that
carried me,

a longing for flesh
and bones grinding,
quilt covers rising.

I am the eye of the storm,
silencing as your mouth
swallows mine and I rise

to meet you, flames
consuming my
heart.

You are standing in the middle of a poppy field,

sweet red petals gathering around your bare feet,

their black roots planting themselves in your heart.

You will remember this, when he kisses your neck,

goodnight. You will hear him say he loved you

that day. Your yellow dress gathering about your knees,

skimming the blue bruises that have built up over time

to colour your skin in the way the sea is coloured on a globe of the Earth.

He will think your body an Atlas, drawing rings around the countries

he has visited. There will always be uncharted territory,

another city to discover. He will tell you that you looked

beautiful that day, with your hair dyed silver blonde and

curled. He will trap you in that moment like a photograph,

and sixty years from now he will whisper a word in your ear,

and you will be the girl, standing in a poppy field

again

I think to myself, keep to myself
the secrets of sea-
water

ninety-nine percent salt
that covers a black-iced road

so that the cars don't slip and sway
like a tree branch, robbed of its leaves

I retain fluid, absorb every ounce, every morsel of memory

I nearly drowned once, my lungs
filled like a petrol tank, ten dollars

a gallon. I swirled down, down
to the ocean floor

a message in a blue bottle passed me,
containing a love plea

I plea, with the sea
let me go

let me walk on the sand again,
let me bury my feet in

glass. The sea answered me.
Spat me out like the pip of an apple

the core that no-one dare eat but the
strange boy who sits alone

in hand me down clothes, with
rope burnt wrists

I walk the sand again,
dragging my heals

burying my face, crying sea-
water

a near miss,
a boy eating an apple core

the sea wall stretching out
like an arm

in the morning. The secrets of sea-
water

buried in the sand

When I was small,
I ran sticks across railings
or else pointed them at strangers, threatening to shoot

I feigned innocence, as if the folds of my lemon dress wrapped themselves tight around me. Unfolding for no one.

Yet, that's not the truth. His cupped hands offering me sweet water, a drink from the cup of purgatory.

I opened for him. Cotton collapsing to the floor. Legs still and steady, breathe sticky with secrets.

He kissed me, a Judas kiss. As if I'd soon be hanging from a tree. A neck snapped, rope burnt and smoking.

I count the scars on his chest as my own crushes, the weight of a whiskey soul, singing me to sleep.

I transcend, a goddess of air, an angel with ***** blonde hair. As his mouth takes mine, acid tongue.

A school bell rings in the distance, cutting time into chunks, religiously.

And I wonder what it's like, to place meaning in these segments of hours. To count down days or name them.

The cold bites me. I shiver in a black coat and bite my blue lips.

Yet the sun would burn me if I let it. I must stick to the dark, bury my roots in the dirt and grow

(up)

He didn't force me, I walked into that house willingly. Eager steps to escape the row of cars, the buzz of people.

I kissed him. Sweet cannabis stained tongue. I took his mouth into mine and held it, like a breath underwater.

I chose my own drinks, paid for them myself. Counted coins and pinned my hopes on you and your fake ID.

I remember it well. No force. No bait. The chatter of strangers in a cramped kitchen as I tried to sleep.

I left the door unlocked. Would anyone? Footsteps on soft carpet, quietly caught me, unawares.

Hands and tongues carve scars into my body. The kind that don't turn silver and fade. A permanent reminder of Hell.

Something changed within me that night. A new found fear. Sudden terror at an innocent touch. The people, too loud. The sun, too bright.

Scrutinising me. Judging me. Burning me down to the bone.

Rain is the language of love
and I am soaked down to my skin,
my dress sticking to me like a second skin,
flesh heart, ripped out and drowned,
a heart that has grown roots
around you

I close my eyes and imagine
filling the ocean between us
with stones

stepping, one by one, over the water

as a child, I would skim pebbles with my left hand

disadvantaged and weak

I am now as I was back then
unable to reach the better half

of me

I kiss you, empty soul
and bruised lips. Blisters
from biting down, tasting blood, swirling it round my teeth.
You are God to me, a heavenly vision. White and clean, like I have never been. I taste your bones as I take you into my mouth. A mercy kiss. Marrows mixing as we grind, holy hip bones. Friction. The clay compound of hearts. I bury each one in my chest. Hold tightly. And pray for a kiss. Unseen by God. A secret. A deadly sin. We are sinners, tongues searching in the dark. I take you, wine soaked breath and heavy sighs. Rouge red and biting, biting down to the core of the forbidden apple. We are temptation. Hungry and Godless. We forge our way with broken, filthy nails. Seeking, seeking, searching...

Rose petals litter the bed

and where you see beauty
I see only the dead flower

ripped from its roots, dirt clinging to its stem

a pink blossom, a ruddyred thorn

piercing my chest as my heart beats, irregularly

a feeble twitch, a caffeine shake

skin pulled tight, scarred, the wrappings of muscle and blood

kohl and red ochre,
like Cleopatra

(undone)

The man beside me talks in his native tongue,
I hear the accent, broken and beaten out of him yet still,
strong
he is talking of crossings and kindness, a welcome mat on the door of another
country
his coffee skin is spooned like sugar, people either take or leave
it
and the sound of waves crashing over a rubber boat
and the cries of children as icy water hits their not yet weather worn faces
pregnant women rummaging in bins for bread and the skin and bones of men,
beaten, broken, seeking comfort from an unkind face
a border, protected and a land that needs purging, a plague of fear and the man, beside me
who I cannot understand except in his heartbeat and in mine, synchronised organs that know nothing of race, fear and hate that breeds and blossoms like cherry trees. Peeling back skin and language, I hold his hand, as the ashes of the world fall on us all.

& I believed in God
as I covered your lips with mine

the thick cloak of incense smothering us, weak kneed from prayer,

sinking into stone,
the redness of our lips

the heavy gloss

washing my teeth with wine
enamel stained and

yellowing

two women, bending into the folds of each other's skin

& maybe we are God, two Eves and temptation, consumed

into the shape

of us

This was the nuts and bolts
of her,

stripped down

tasting metal with her iron tongue

licking, licking the corners of cogs

this is the age of

steel

welding, glass-less

sparks flying into her eyes

and she is

aluminium

light as air and mouldable

I work the shape

of her

with my fingers

mere brass and copper, yet

in the moonlight she is

silver

my mouth moves
yet I am
wordless

My knees weaken when I see you

half smiling lips and wine soaked breath

I am still faithful

a shadow, shadow that walks

without body

without a solid shape

I turned to God once, ideally,
my mouth forming prayers I'd saved

for you

muttering malice into the nothingness

etching memories the way they etch gravestones

a black crayon and blank paper,
pressing hard and hoping

that the colours will somehow
bloom into meaning

Godless, knees shaking

a single handshake and I am
crucified

I am afraid of that which I cannot touch,

the stars that burst and spread out across an infinite sky

the fire that's too hot, blazing black coal in the hearth

the air that carries words, flower petals, blue birds and rain

the heart's pink pulse that dictates life (and death)

the stomach full of swallowed butterflies, beating brown wings against my guts

God

you

A heartbeat that swells
like an ocean, weak and pink
from the sun

I try to breathe, breath in, breath out, in sync with
the beating of this broken
heart

It rattles around, full of brain
pills and memories, and each beat shakes me down to the bone as I

gasp in the filthy air, the taste of aeroplanes and migrating birds, tickling my tongue.

I take it in, with a breath that pulls from the bottom of my cigarette wrecked lungs and I count my

pulse.

I am a part of everything, with this beating, broken heart that persists like a ****

consuming a garden, the dandelion, the yellow root of

the sun

discoveries unfold,
into the folds of
my mind

and I swirled her teeth
and treachery around my mouth
like wine and spat them out

there is nothing left of us but
a quarter bottle of whiskey and
half a pack of tax free cigarettes

we smoke, two at a time,
choking back the cheap chemicals
as if they are our tears

and, my darling, I have cried for you, on stained and ***** sheets that I wrap, like a glove, around my trembling bones

taking the eye of the storm into my mouth, like a ripe plum, yellow flesh that taunts my tongue and I let

all of my other senses dull as I taste a mouthful

of you

They say that you should build memories

sepia photographs and inky fingerprints

a box hidden under a bed, gathering dust

a stash of dried flowers in a bra

I say I am building something stronger

with the way he looks at me as if I am the

sunset

a warm skyscrape of orange and red, a golden glow

that radiates

a rage, that will spread from my pink heart

into the cracks

a burning pit of coals, flames that flicker and

die

I am building...

building

building

hope

Sometimes through the
silence, I hear your voice
whispering my name
a timid cat-call reaching
like a hand, nails clipped
like claws. I want to
respond to your
touch, to crumble
like soft rock beneath
your breath. Yet I
can't forget those
hours you weren't
there. Or the days
of empty whiskey
bottles and *****
coffee spoons. I
used to pray to
God for you to
come back to me.
But I no longer
believe in miracles.
No. Just the awful
edges of a word,
a hand, a memory.

Like a bird of prey he circles me,

cigarette stained fingers grasping at light, loose cotton

his breath, stained with whiskey
and red wine

dripping with blood as he devours me, soul first, a ripe heart for afters

the whistle of the wind through a cracked chimney ***

where they used to send children, where children died

(I envy them)

I collapse into his words and I know I must succumb to my (un) death

to the weight of twenty stones of fat logged arteries

to a man two joints of red meat away from a heart attack

who is forcing feeding me a glass of water laced with sedatives

I pray to a God who is dead to me
that I want to resurrect

I pray for Cyanine and Arsenic,
kept in a jar

under the bed where he
buries me

Like Hercules
we were set tests
of character

building fires
that could warm
ice bitten fingers
that had plunged
through layers of
flesh, gutting out
a heart

hunting wild animals
with nothing but
hope and hunger
&

walking into the
ocean, taking on
one wave at a
time, one breath
of salty air at
a time

knowing the if we
fail, we will be
outcasts

of love

You can
start a fire
without knowing how
to build one

Your mouth circles mine
hunting for the wildness that grows
like a vine in my throat
your jagged teeth cut into my tongue and you take what you find,
like a scavenger
a vile of blood, licked from my lips
the corner of a smile, burnt heart
the bread and bones of me

sorting through stained jeans and shirts

I remember her

pink gingham dress and gnawed knees

from the floor she scrubbed

removing traces of brown blood
where she bled for

him

(for God)

swallowing sins and secrets,

the ****** Mary merely

a memory

to her.

I select a pair with ripped shins,

hand over my dollar

anticipating the anarchy of bare skin and ribs

(once fleshy)

protruding like

a ***** before

(Christ)

and I am not

that girl

in the thrift store

pressed palms

praying, praying, praying

for the taste of a

saviour

Old enough to know better but young enough not to care,

I hold onto you like water clings to rose petals

a heavy due

in the morning, we take coffee with cigarettes

we exhale, eyes watering

two smoke rings blending then disappearing into the

ether

a missed opportunity, passes

we are joined at the hip, hip bones grinding against each

other

and in these shattered bones we build

a fire, a house

a home

As the oily substance hits my bloodstream

my insides shudder

concrete setting into the stem of
my brain

Peter Pan taps my window, inviting me to

fly

but I can barely walk

atleast

I am free of unlaced shoes

of licking blood from the corner of my mouth

bitten lips and chewed fingernails

seventy five milligrams
of sanity

With a fish bone as a hair piece

she trawled the beach for clues,

a shell, a seaweed skin

the sea spread out and she held

the entire ocean in her mouth

swirling it around her crumbling
teeth

like a fine wine, red and ripe for spitting

out into a plastic bucket

that a child holds in their clenched fist

a mind full of castles and building

and I wonder what we are building

busking outside the mall on even

days of the week

a handful of copper and occasional silver

she runs sand through her fingers

then water

what does she see in those tiny grains of

glass

what does she see in

us

cigarette stained fingers grab at golden hair

she offers herself to God, in martyrdom

eating the bones of Christ
(bruised flesh as a summer dress is torn)

drinking the blood of Him
(cracked hips, buckling)

she swallows, white salt, burnt throat

imagining herself, developing in a dark room

red

and swollen

he lays her out, pinning her lemon dress out to dry

hot Summer sun soaked skin

and cotton

torn

crucified, ***** nails (his) forced through her hands

blood (hers) running down soft thighs

he puts out his cigarette in her hair

before hacking himself a souvenir and handing her

to God

(unflinching)

The edges of one body blending into the bones of another

spreading like fire on a terrace of thatched roof houses

we are learning how to count in twos, in pairs

we are moulding into the shape
of a house where children run, barefoot

we are learning how to build ourselves out of ashes and fractions

out of crumbling teeth and rotten mouth kisses,

halitosis

I was plucking out weeds from between the concrete patio slabs. You were watering the tulips and tending to the vegetables.

We could grow enough to live off, you say sometimes, when the whiskey trickles down your throat and the fire licks your belly.

The belly of a man, heavy set from years of sugared, milky tea. From using his hands to build the house we live in. To build the room where I am standing,

with its beech furniture and scrubbed floors, it's nooks and crannies which make it impossible to keep clean.

All those years, washing when the weather allowed. Picking colours from a paint chart. Talking passionately. Loudly and quietly. We even talked about the weather, sometimes. You made poetry out of the atmosphere. But weather changes, rapidly and without warning,

the gentle wind you once called Odin's daughter has morphed into thunderous roars, shaking the walls you so carefully built around us.

we are ******* hard at the sky now, gasping for air. It is raw, unsterilised air, that burns your tongue as you breathe it in,

yet breathe it in we must.

I wonder who we are now. Weather beaten, windswept tourists. Should we have left this place years ago?

We scrub the floors. We mow the grass. We wait for something to happen

next.

We mouthed what we wanted to say,
or else kept our lips locked like ventriloquists,
as we tried to send electric shocks through our fingertips.
Our life wires connecting under the sheets,
through the soft cotton fabric lightly brushing our knees.

Who are we to deny it's charges?

The trembling that starts
in our toes and rises like water
through our veins,
as warm as wine,
filling our bodies up
with the kind of love
you only find on postcards.

Are we just on holiday?

(J'ai demandé à la lune,)

am I too cold for you?
why won't you wrap your arms around me? Unloosen those limbs like a tree shakes off its branches in the wind.

do you not own me enough? Twenty five years of children, houses we don't own, school plays and split pay checks.

twenty five years of mixing you cocoa every night, adding the cold milk and sugar that makes it palatable to you.

a king sized bed, with blankets and comforters. Why do I need to be covered by your body, wrapped in sky blue silk?

you should be warm enough for yourself, she says. As she passes me a glass of picnic basket wine. I turn my head.

there are fire flies to catch, bees circling the grasses we're about to drink from, a blue dragonfly.

(il était seulement une aventure.)

The shoreline gleams around us, winking beneath the sun. I think about how it meets the sky and the reflection of something beautiful on something wild.

What does the ocean say about us?

You are hoping the rain will stop, as we wonder ideally across the sand dunes

a cliff to climb, a sea to swim in, a beach to build sand castles

and claim with a flag.

I have stopped hoping for it.

I surrender to the summer rain splashing my shoes,

to the sky that darkens through the lens of my camera

a macro shot of a crab, pinched and poised to

attack.

we think in lumps of time, all of us. Great lumps of time

defined by birthdays and religion.

Winter whispers in our ears, a whiff of cinnamon

in the air.

and though you hope to hold it back, with your fingers in the dam

I tell you, again, that we are not ruled by

the sea

I am eating when you call.
I let the phone ring out and the answerphone click,

and flick you off, a speck of dust on my shoulder.

I treat you like an unpinned
grenadine, desperate to throw you into the crowd,

but fear makes me clutch you, tight. As I place the ***** of my feet on burning coals. One step, then another, mind over matter.

Until the words that we once held deep in our throats burst through the dam

and I walk into the sea loaded with rocks, drinking the salty ocean one gulp at a time, so I don't have to turn around and

face you

I unfold in the Summer.
I collapse, piece by piece
into myself

I stare at the ceiling for days,
else pace the floorboards
getting splinters in the soles
of my feet

I mix a drink over the plate filled sink, I don't take care of the basics.
Washing, cleaning...

I neglect it all. I stick to drinking gin from ***** mugs. I was drunk then and I don't think I've sobered up

a decade of paint striper and counting coppers, of wine soaked breath and flinching

sometimes I eat. Swelling my stomach with half baked bread. Too hungry to let it rise

I stand, stock still, under the moon. A whisper between man and man. A backfiring car. A memory...

it still hurts sometimes, when I move. So I wear cotton. Do fabrics have innocence? Do colours?

lemon and orange. No more siren red

(I spread)

He must have loved you, they say to me now. People only **** the ones they love

or the pretty ones

(and I am not a pretty one)

I understand a flatline
soap scrubbed hands punching chests
the sound of air escaping in a last breath

I can grieve
black hood and buckled shoes
kicking up dirt in the cemetery grass

I thought I had time so I held off saying it
as your congregation sent you inky kisses and prayers

everything is bleached white and sterile, we choke down chemical soaked breaths

holy fools that come to take you
bone by bone

salt crystals form on my eyelashes
as if I've drunk the sea

I am swollen with bread and wine
and sins

the weight of the three words
I didn't say
catch like pills in my throat

I splutter and cough but there is no
shifting them

just the shifting of tectonic plates as my world starts to move

without you

With lips that challenge the
reddest of wines

she drank from the cup that was offered, without question

it was sweet. Sickly sweet and dark

dark sugar, the colour of ***
drips from her mouth,

she wipes off the evidence with a snide smile,

a knowing scorn. Almonds

ground up and mixed into marzipan

covering cakes, full of plump fruits soaked in brandy

take a slice. You have your cake now

eat it.

The arms, legs, heads
were covered in clay
but their bodies
hadn't decayed.
They were trapped
in ice, transparent,
clean. That is the role
of bodies. To be seen.
That is the role of
children. To sit
quietly counting
coins. To brush
the long blonde
hair of their
sister (mother.)
To not be heard.
The dead leaves
of trees are
too loud.
Crunching under-
foot. Who am I
to investigate?
To take samples
of hair and
skin. To match
DNA and finger-
prints. No, the
ice should not
melt. As it
struggles to
survive in the
sunlight. The bodies
thaw. Heart first.
And I am trapped.
plunging the
secrets of rope
around throat.
Of stab wounds
and bullet sites.
And the blood
is so cold. So
very cold and
unforgiving,
unmissable,
uncharted,
until my hands
slice,
sift,
silence.

I belong to the State,
to these nurses who force milk soaked bread into my mouth

to these slaves who stuff trains
with beaten bodies, on to doctors who amputate without anaesthetic

to hard labour and hunger.

my blonde haired mother carried me
in her ayrian womb

Illegitimate.

some are kidnapped, blue eyes
running with tears as they

grab (carefully)

I am banging, bending, breaking
under the weight of their promise that

I am special

and I am proving my right to exist

to be spared
sterilisation, extermination ,
to not be a genetic undesirable
a gas chamber child

no, I am free
to sleep, to eat,
to breathe

allowed to live
because I am a
Lebensborn child

Summer. A time of strawberries
and cream smears. All that time, grass licking my thighs through my cheap lemon dress.
I am as bitter as that lemon. Skin peeling, peeling, peeling
back, revealing segments of a girl. Bruised with memories and the moments where time stood still. I am bored, bored, bored out of my mind. Weeding, cutting back hedges and picking blackberries. Holding your hand as you shiver with a summer chill. I wipe the sweat from your brow, imagining I'm wiping away the years. Do you remember when we'd chop wood? Splinters in our fingers and rough calloused hands. I remember it well. Why ever did we stop? Building us a home. Is this just a pause? A tea break. We drink tea together, sometimes, over newspapers. I pretend, pouring milk, measuring out sugar. My hands covered in evidence. Dripping with your DNA. You don't know how easy it is to ******. To shoot. To poison. To stab at organs. Your swollen heart ceasing to beat under my fingers. Your liver leaking. Some do it with knifes, kindly. Others with a wrong name shouted in ecstasy. A wet towel on the bathroom floor. Kids screaming in the backseat of cars. I grieve at your funeral. I scatter your ashes on the moorland where we used to ****. My black dress catching in the branches of dead trees. I grieve. I practise looking mystical. Mythical. Solemn. I hold my head differently, now, and I am bored, bored, bored out of mind.

He lived his eighty years well,
they said

he often knotted his wrinkled hands around the smooth fleshed hands of his grandchildren

still, his heart gave out eventually,
swollen with love

I went to his funeral, a bystander,
an intruder of grief

I take flowers to his grave,
purple tulips with petals

that eat up rain clouds
and sunlight like a ****,

taking nourishment from
the red and white roses that
neighbour them

photosynthesis,

I recall the word,
from chemistry classes
an age ago

I never knew him, though
I got his name from a newspaper obituary I ideally flicked through at 4am

I had never known old age, you see
and it seemed beautiful to me