It’s hardly surprising
That dust gathers
When movement
Is gone
That air
Becomes stale
When not moved
By word or action

You used to
Breathe the air
I’d just exhaled
Bite it from the sky
And gulp it down

Your finger-tips
Moved over
Every surface
With gentle
Caress

All the things
We gathered
& polished
& cherished
Have returned
To inanimate
Anonymity

Your key
On the shelf
No longer
Opens our world
Or commences
A journey
Cold and removed
From the key-ring
Slipped
Easily
To independence
Like your wedding band

I know the suntan
Of our sunshine
Still leaves
Traces on your
Absent hand
And the years
Of living
& leaving
& returning
Have smoothed
Your key
Have smoothed
me

A spider
Still
Drinking the life
From a bee’s
Thorax cup
In sunlight
Between the dagger
Fronds
Of a palm
That I planted
Drinking tea
I watch

Mean Windows

Mean windows
Small light
Mean architect
Limited budget
& imagination
Half-light estate
Small curtains
Mean windows
Early dusk
No street-light
Glass broken
Doors boarded
Mean windows
Clint Eastwood eyes
Tagged & Flagged
Grassless
Concrete gardens
Brown and grey acres
Mean windows
Closed shops
Citizens Advice
Misery
With chips
And mean windows
With small curtains
Saving on glass
Costs light

Revelling in your
disfunctionality
Your interesting
complexity
And the one thing
You are proud of
is that you have
nothing to be proud of
And the one thing
that you value
Is that you value
nothing

I love moments like that,
when only a nod is needed.
When words would complicate
the essential understanding
that we both had,
of what can be left out,
what can be ignored;
when eyes talk to eyes
and understand
that the rest is just dressing
just unnecessary expression
beyond what is simple.

So simple that
the memory is stronger
when there are no words
to remember.

Your fragrance remains

In high corners & cupboards

Your hairs painted into

The fabric of the walls

Filigree veins

Your very skin as dust

Sealed

Stratified

Into the place

Our home



Your finger print

Clear on the gloss painted frame

Eye lashes in the mirror corners

Your broken wine glass fragment

Beneath the fridge

With my contact lens

Staring blindly at

Each other

For recognition



Your rounded buttock curve

Sits in the leather

Of your favourite place

And your fragrance

In high corners & cupboards

Paris June 18th 1940

Dear Mother,
Beauty surrounding us
daily
but never more than a
street away
from another wall
with bullet holes
and flowers