I think a v
oice is co
ming ba
ck to me
caught up i
n the breeze

I’d turn it int
o a song
but my words a
re like water
gone too q
uick

you know the brit
tle moments
that cru
mble as a child
crushing a flow
er in their hands

you’re the gh
ost beside me
present b
ut never
really the
re at all

morning barney
next door
muffled eff-yous
fuzz through the walls
in the mirror
my eyes awash
with scrawny red streams
my head like a sack
of gravel

that night
we talk about London
I think of the hug I will give
the clumsiness
coursing through me
like treacle
my lungs congested
with strange capital air

the subject changes
your girlfriend
guts a packet
of salt and vinegar
and we laugh
between sips of my Coke
and your drink
a sickly yellow

I let the conversation
drizzle over me
in a shower of syllables
I know my words
are jumbled
splattered slipshod
as a toddler’s painting
but I toss them in
see if they gleam

Eleven thousand
            three hundred
     sixty one miles away
in a place   I’ve never been,
     you are thinking
          of all the places
you have never   been
     or haven’t   been,
some for seasons,
          some for years.

A Paris   pomegranate   sunrise
     from the Pont des Arts,
     bright     colours     shimmying
at the   pulse   of romance.

The   blood   cell   rush   of Shibuya,
   Tokyo at night among
a river of     strange symbols,
   blinking   TV   screens.
  
Prague dredged in frost,
   feet-chatter   on cobbles
          past the Jan Hus memorial
under a   cool   periwinkle sky.

Glossy tulips in Bilbao,
   metallic curves,
   trill   of   syllables
     by the teal Nervión.

I think of you,          far away,
   same planet, different   spot,
the future washing towards us
   full of scrambled   images
and     white     noise,
a trickle of hope at your   toes,
   through my screen.

We melt into the shadows.
Our bodies tick
with an indigo light,
a time signature
specific to us,
movements fluid,
rhythmic,
shushing off the walls
like mysterious whispers,
reflect back
from our electrical figures.
It is a discovery,
the finding and feeling
of skin,
intricacies of instants
only between one and another,
like the extrication of a knot
or a golden rug unfurling.
Our breaths mingle
in the air,
a freshly made mist
full of invisible things.
Goosebumps recede,
our heartbeats tremor
with a want
for closeness,
for silent desires.

Everything better simple.
Everything better with words sliced to size.
The chasm between
waking and not being waking,
all moments minute
and colossal lined up,
delightful in their plainness.
The making of friendships,
a cinch, interests shared
and food eaten,
laughter that ricochets from wine glasses
with a shrill giggle.
Then the maintenance work, a doddle.
Dialogue runs as blood through a body.
Time to see each other.
Time to make an effort
to make time to see each other.
Clutching onto loves
before sell-by dates.
Labels disposed of
before they are even affixed.
No rise of an eyebrow
when the different ones
open their mouths,
revel in the spaces
where they don’t fit in.
Decisions made without
a flutter of uncertainty,
a bubble of anxiety
that bounces round the brain.
Everything better simplistic.
Everything delightful in their plainness.

I.

The childhood lie
of a rotund Santa Claus
who delivers gifts

--------------------
II.

Smells from the kitchen
potpourri of vegetables
steam glued to windows

--------------------
III.

Muddle of colours
wrapping paper ripped open
revealing presents

the sun signifies
a deep bloom of affection
radiant in the heart

a kiss miles in the making
geography of your love
an extra horizon away

eager heartbeats
the ache of a touch
electrifies every nerve

warmth of a lemon embrace
light swims in
now watch how you glow