The first night that they slept apart
-I think because he had a cough-
He grabbed his pillow from their bed
Mimed a kiss and then was off.

Their separation lingered on
like cancer growing in a womb
Days into weeks turned into years
each spouse in their separate room.


Anniversaries came apace
To the separate cells wherein they dwell
All marveled at “togetherness.”
None could glimpse their private hell
.
No kiss, no glance, no warm embrace
As would ward off a winter’s chills
No passionate heat or casual lust
Not that either needed pills

And then one day he failed to wake
Cool to her touch, she felt his arm
Detachedly she looked upon
Her love, long dead, now gone

She lay down on the bed once shared
And swallowed pills enough and more
To join her fellow in that sleep
They’d share together evermore.

When Dorothy trod the paths of Oz
Her companions were deficient:
One lacked Courage,
One lacked brains,
One was heartless, but
Ax Proficient.

She was an illegal alien,
from Kansas, of all
places!
Imagine, when she and
Toto came-
the look on people’s faces.

Still that was seventy years ago.,
In another place and time-
Just before we went to war
against evil personified.

If Dorothy, today,appeared
with a similar convocation
The Wizard might mistake them
for a Congressional Delegation

For lack of brain and heart and spine
Our Congress is more than sufficient-
Some lack Courage, some lack brains
Some are heartless but
tax proficient

I can see the old graffiti
Inscribed in purple paint
And words that say I love you
On the old town's water tank
The words are kinda faded
Though they still defy old time
But the story's clear as ever
On the pages of my mind

       While I'm still hooked on yesterday and you
       The writing on the wall says we're through
       When I went off to fight the war
       You met the man you'd waited for
       So tell me now what I'm supposed to do
       I'm still hooked on yesterday and you

There's the winding country road
Where I'd take you for a ride
When I'd turn that curve a little fast
You'd slide close to my side
Your lips were starting something
Before I could even park
As your fingers tangled in my hair
I could feel your pounding heart

        Chorus

Bridge:  I just had to come by one last time
               Was not that heart you gave him
               The one I thought was mine

       Chorus

When the brink vanishes
the furnace swallows its
mother's pastoral tongue
which then echoes through
one thousand years of dead mouths

Beauty flings its severed head cavalier
over the mob who are nippled toothed
and penised maggots of war

Through my window
from my black scaffold
at the furthest edge of the orchard
we'll meet in secret

ocean slams
into the breaking wall.
i build this wall,
reinforcing with steel beam,
concrete and stone.
higher and higher it goes,
deeper and wider i build.

ocean crashes onto my shore, washes over my sand covered feet.

oh, my sea love, take me back into your depths.
fill my lungs with your salty waters
so that my song can spill out
and i can once again
dance the delight of words.

It's a difficult thing, admitting I've
grown old, no longer denying the truth
and feeling mortality's cold breath which
until now I've not wanted to accept.
In those flourishing days of my youth
I often felt as if I could outgrow my skin,
heaving and throbbing with life's lust,
but now I feel I am shrinking back,
too far back into this aging shell,
finally seeing how I'm at the autumn
of my life while it gathers about me
as brittle leaves swirl about a lamppost.

--

No men.
But when the
conversation starts, they dominate.
Worm their way into every sentence, every silence.
Every caught breath, exhaled pause.
Names, nice-to-meet-yous, passed round with sandwiches and tea.
Hole-riddled autobiographies, wadded out with circumstance and need.
Explaining themselves, defending their actions. In turn. And I?
Have never felt so young.
To my left, and working clockwise: Affair-with-the-boss, Heart-condition, High-risk-of-genetic-defects,
In-the-middle-of-a-divorce-not-sure-why-she-slept-with-him, Grown-up-children-can’t-bear-to-go-through-that-again,
and back to me. (Boyfriend-has-two-kids-wants-no-more)
He noticed that I’m pregnant.
Was pregnant.
Was.
We chew our way through sandwiches. Different coloured fillings, no flavour- choked down with lukewarm tea.
We know it’s a test.
We have to talk, smile, eat, drink, laugh (not manically)
if we're to go home.
I can’t do it.
I want to cry. But I’ve been told off for that already (curled up on a trolley, examining bloodied fingers)
I drift, I think.
Jump out of my skin when she speaks to me.
You must eat she says.
You must eat.
I search for myself in their eyes,
re-make myself from fragments and reflections I find there (Four parts child, one part *****)
It’s OK, I tell her. It’s OK.
On my way home I’ll get a Happy Meal.
I’m collecting the toys.