My imaginary friend climbs into bed with me and whispers in my ear every time I try to sleep. We dress in night-time: pull on black stockings, snap them around half-moon thighs.

We ladder the sky
and splinter our spines.

There are things we don't talk about (because we are the gaps between reality that still believe in selkes and Cornish piskies)
but for years we have been panning for dreams.

Doubt burns like fuse-wires but God sometimes freezes the electricity.
She crosses her fingers when she promises to believe. (That's the bargain). She talks to Him each hour
but He never replies
and she is so used to being doted on.

We pretend we are dead.
Just for tonight.

She doesn't think she matters:
mourning for the moon - her halo of humidity.
She traces the clouds' edges with highlighter.

I balance her morning-massacre mind with the inaugural thrum of a threatening migraine. I am not used to her megaphone chest and she forces our Scorpio symphony down my throat like an over-active heartbeat. (That's what frightens God).

She told me not to stick quills to my back,
said the weight of wings would only weigh me down.