there's an empty space in my bed
it's always been there
but i'm just feeling it now
i shouldn't be able to stretch out so far
kick my legs over the side
wrap my arms around the headboard
the wood is cool against my skin
while you kept me comfortably warm
i have two pillows too many
and i'd rather have a shoulder
i'd rather feel your hair tickle the back of my neck
than be searching the pillow for the cold side

Half cut teens dressed in high street dreams
stand and survey the beach,
combing it for male shells, to clarify:
guys who think crucifix tattoos on their lower leg will save them from hell.

A mother whose job it is to look after surfboard and parasol,
yes you the mother looking my way,
you should ditch the marriage and get on the road,
hug the coast with tire squeals,
hug men with body sacrificing screams in
cheap French roadside hotels that don’t clean their bathrooms that well.

Girlfriend left to sit the sun out whilst boyfriend joins husbands in the surf,
reads but really she’s breathing,
passing the hours and folding over page corners,
don’t let him see that you don’t love him.

Tablet kids who watch the sea on screen, in apps,
when behind them is a torrent of live data swells and boils
causing swimmers to tumble and coil up close to the sea bed,
some parents, increasingly the same,
forgetting why they came to the coast in the first place.

Ponder the milkman.
Uniform obsolescence met evolution
Occupation is what you are reduced to,
In a body
Not meant for boundaries
Some nausea from the neighbor’s perfect lawn
There is anxiety pouring from that clock
Cerebral mardi gras parade rolling the spine
Crackling bottle rockets that pepper nerve endings
Between the shouting and *******
Accompanied by beads of sweat
My love
Ain’t all in the hips, some comes
Outside of me, but through me all goes
All I could ever know
And always less I could tell you
Things aren’t the same, they never will be
That truth like a statue
Carved from ever step forward
That forgot what backwards meant
The Milkmen may be a dead breed
But I know children who have soul
Dressed all in that pearly white
Ready to deliver
Themselves
To everything.

I wonder who
You assume
These words are really for

(If you think you are
'You'
You probably are)

She is young. Have I the right
Even to name her? Child,
It is not love I offer
Your quick limbs, your eyes;
Only the barren homage
Of an old man whom time
Crucifies. Take my hand
A moment in the dance,
Ignoring its sly pressure,
The dry rut of age,
And lead me under the boughs
Of innocence. Let me smell
My youth again in your hair.