they said you couldn't miss it
how it sprouts volatile
blood-built demon flora

or chain smoker’s inflamed lung
messy web of charred arteries
drips singe ground to orange

skinny hooks like sky fissures
a seeping wound that sullies
evening’s cobalt gauze

and no, you didn’t miss it
leaves well gone on winter's
vampiric apparition

A dismal bubble consumes the pair -

- the man, blotchy blue, plagued
with a sickness even he can't define,
his arms a hoop around her -

- the woman, lava-haired,
hot water drizzle no soothing salve,
no weather of comfort -

- even the kiss a torrid symbol,
blistering residue every time
they embrace. She wants to hold on -

- and he knows he can't escape.

grubby brown land
half-moon like a splash of milk
punctuation in the darkest of darks

and the dog is barking
mustard-bearded with its earbud leg
and chalky eye eying a bird

red-tailed bottle
above the ladder to nowhere
or black everywhere

a place a dog still howls
at the nonchalant moon
night-time's noiseless citizen

forks against turbulent sky
vivid cigarette flicker
like a stifled disturbance

the water holds what's high
fluvial duplicate shivers
in orange and jasmine

and the fog - great belches of it
day’s first gesture of mischief
by the house of power

baby of rust
bloomed from the womb
tether to the lost

lone orchid
by the too-big bed
memory left red

dream out in tears
odd choir of charms
sing a quiet awful song

You're the one who suggested
the park picnic, obviously. We got the food
from the M&S at King's Cross after you’d arrived,
wearing the bracelet I'd bought you
for your thirtieth half a year ago.
You really didn't have to. I knew that,
but did anyway. Happy tears flashed
in your eyes. In mine too.

Although we both know, we ask
how we've been. Much the same as always.
Work colleagues fancy a drink
on Fridays - it's a pass. Skin’s breaking out
again - it's hormonal. Turns out we're both
reading Emily Henry because everyone else is.
Falling into line with the masses.
Bookish FOMO, you say. I emit a giggle at that.

A group of others play football nearby;
tote bags for goalposts. I doubt a wayward kick
but I move the share bag of cheese
and onion closer to my crossed legs.
I almost don't hear you ask really better now,
I worry you know. I know you do but again,
my throat becomes clogged. I never tell.
The light licks your shoulders and I think of drinking
the sun one day without rosy blotches
on my skin, heartburn on the hour, every hour.

Half-mouldy stalks, some hunchbacked.
Graveyard of street lights with blown lamps
or yellows, faded, fizzing into expiry.
That is all for the year. It is over now.

Bramblings navigate the snow-drenched fallen.
Have they known the illuminations?
Scuttling, inquisitive with seeds in mouths,
alive between scrawny, spent matches.