It got so bad
he couldn’t sleep.
Frenzied bedsheets,
pillow a swamp of sweat.
He’d swig milk
from the carton,
eyes a crush of crimson
and wouldn’t say a thing.

Then he’d mention he could hear them still.
The duh-duh-duh-duh of bullets
zooming towards strangers,
the thunderous stomach-rumble
of an erupting grenade.
I’d grip his hand and he’d cry,
shake his head, trickle out names.
I couldn’t help so I cried too.
The therapist would ****** tissues at us.

I’d be careful with noises.
If I dropped something
he’d shoot up like
an electric-shocked puppet.
Body at home,
mind at war.
He smelt death in the air,
the energy sapping from his body
as if a pin had perforated his skin.

I had to drag him up
from the bathroom floor,
as if a putrid corpse
wrenched from a river.
     Why is it me?
     What did I fight for?
That’s what he asked me.
I didn’t know, wouldn’t know,
and we cradled each other
as the shower spat out water
for a minute, for an hour.

you cannot fall in love
with strangers
you fall in love
with the idea
create a filter
a sort of cellophane wrapper
dangled in front of the eyes
and everything sweeps
virus-like into colour

you’re lapping it up
a thirsty hound
making an accent that fits
as if whisking ingredients
until the texture’s correct
the two of you together
in scenarios that’ll never happen
a matinee showing
on the cinema screen in your head

you’ll picture it
and it will feel real
but you’ve fashioned a fiction
bleeding with improbable chapters
the idea a supernova
real life a distant planet

Your body is as dark as the night
and I love it

if only I could slip
into your shadow

when the lights expire

my breaths
wouldn’t feel like flames

blossoming in my chest

A stroke they said.
Came along like a puncture,
eked the breath out from him.
Not a surprise but still
a hot bullet to the chest.
Been told his organs
were wilting with age,
raisin wrinkles sprinkled
across a seven-decade face.

Wheeled the body away,
blades of grey hair,
lumpy veins that tore
through his skin.
He knew it was coming.
Wished to kiss his wife again,
eleven years after their last.
Her name was Mary I think.
Cancer.

Had a passion for horses.
Just yesterday
put a fiver on Lust for Life
and Magic Touch.
Both came in, he’d have had
fifty quid. Lucky ***.
At the bookies they all loved him.
When I collected his winnings
I had to explain.

I think they knew
before I opened my mouth.

place your ear to the Wall
it’s OK
they can’t hear

somebody’s Coughing
and somewhere
she is Pouring
a cup of tea

the steam up Ups
sticks to the windows

Stand
in a place where
the buildings are old
but New to them

you could be there
Burnt tongue
Jittery fingers

squashed by noise
encased in Foil

you don’t tie shoelaces
clear your throat
and slap a Face on
that’ll Do

the specks could be
Floating away
concerns brought
down South

their smile is Honey
your Head is baking a cake

listening?
heard Enough
Windows watch you
watch yourself
Drink

my answers are mossy pebbles

take them
clean them

peg me to the line

and let the breeze ransack
this body

bones tightened with wire

muscles that scrunch
as carrier bags

there are puddles
they’ve existed longer

stop the rain
flowers don’t sing

they chatter in colour
if you paint them in

I.
Snowman in the park,
not there yesterday
but watching all this morning,
eyes that don’t blink,
black as a crow.

II.
Children **** him
with a vegetable,
a tartan scarf throttles
his frozen throat.

III.
Button-like holes
form a grin,
a banana of circles
fingertip-made.

IV.
Sphere of snow nearby,
an unfinished friend,
project abandoned.

V.
Went to see it,
the skinny veins
of our footprints
a chain around
its podgy white body.

VI.
Sun sploshes the face,
squeak as we touched
its cheek,
residue on our gloves,
signs of decay.

VII.
Doesn’t talk
but sits ignorant,
questions not answered.
Kids get bored.

VIII.
Why will he vanish?
Everything is temporary
a parent explains,
cold as a cube of ice.

VIIII.
Days later
we see it crumble,
great clumps that slump
to the ground,
shedding limbs.

X.
Gone until the next time
I say.
Gone and forgotten,
I bring the scarf back in.