coming home to you
our dog hopping at my feet
my hand reaching for the drool-smothered ball
lazy lob into the kitchen
a shout fizzes down from upstairs
yeah, it’s me, I throw back

shoeless into our bedroom
you half-groan into the pillow
duvet curdled
eyes punctuated with tiredness
I kiss your chapped lips
shuffle my tie free

think I mention work
something about dinner
but night shuttles in
radiator cracking awake
as I glide into my vibrant
reverie of you

pick phone up   put it down again
take a selfie   no another one   and again   light isn’t right
what’s on Twitter   scroll for twenty minutes   pause   basically
PREGNANCY PRANK [GONE WRONG]   add to playlist
oh how can he be the president   like   says it ‘coz he can
love the warm weather   global warming maybe   but oh well
Starbucks for breakfast   lunch   Spotify playlist
like   red heart   blue thumbs-up   share   like
that inspirational quote   you know   basically   I can relate
CHEATING PRANK [GONE WRONG]   add to playlist
election   couldn’t have told you there was one
have we left it yet   like   what are we leaving again
petty crime rise   stay vigilant
something about Brussels   a royal up the duff  
but did you see what Kim was wearing   like   did you hear
what her sister did   with that guy   you know   that guy
look  she’s uploaded   why we broke up   shame
oh yeah   oh well
retweet

watch you go
cherry-red motor
dots that look painted on

no bigger than a fingertip
contact lens bonnet
millimetre-thin wires for legs

shuffle not scuttle
climbing the stem
before you open up

unfurl acetate wings
brisk flicker into
a speck against the sky

when they put it to sleep
   I am already halfway home
or already home
   my head heavy
with that strange social buzz
   that comes from
severing myself from shindigs
   but making an exception
minds skewed with alcohol
   a barefoot teen Fosbury-flopping
over a mate’s dad’s armchair

   before too long
I’ll think of their foot-long children
   caterwauling at 3am
the desk-job half-full cup
   of cheap coffee
our greetings infrequent
  dialogue Wyoming-sparse
say how I should’ve told you
   six mid-Decembers ago
my days a haze of disfluencies
   TV repeats and cold callers

told us it would happen
didn’t believe them

our biggest capitulation
end of civilization

last orange blink
final carpet of stars

Asia first
then the rest

toppling dominoes
stripped streets

lead-less dogs
and hollow televisions

kick your history
to the kerb

man-made oven
own fault

must be time
to update my status

space between adult   more adult
the unmarried   and married
trundle through mid-twenties
roads slobbered with snow
fog-licked windows
friends skidding
into what is expected of us

invitations in the mail
like tiny sirens
reminders
of that perennial question
if not now when
is it your turn yet

taken to
  thistle of syllables
  sapphire streaked sky
and cherry blossom shiver
  liquid pastels
  lethargic car exhalations
machines with their seeds of light
  spherical shimmers
  church spire
poet-named sacred place
  nickel slurry
  flour-doused mountains
alone with myself
  just funnels of breath
  passing my refrigerated lips
reminder of time