Tell me in your odd socks
how it rained when
you left the stationery store,

a child you saw
mesmerised by newborn puddles,
their trembling reflection,

how you later caught your own
in a slippery window,
an empty office, gossipless,

droplets almost washing
you away, what you were
into a newer you, just more wet.

Beneath the sky
chalk-speckled

ink as though spilt
to bruise the night

dark scab blemish
a smoker’s abrasive cough

then muddy worms
wonky highway migraine

and forked tongue limbs
sprout from funnel of pine

I remember it, you
not so much. No. 10 staples,
unused, I’ve brought them.
The store is still there. You said,
regularly, you didn’t want
to sell stationery your whole life.
Pencils end up lost, pens run out,
like a lot of things. The inevitability
of it smacks you like a migraine, I got it.

Soon we became stapled, painlessly,
together. The mossy green jumper,
mine, you wore it. Your knitted-by-grandmother
scarf, sunflowers, I wore
sometimes. Routines we made
ourselves, the right shade of tea,
word puzzles before bed.
All falling into place, a quiet click,
seamless.

Then, restless. Fidgety. A classic
different directions situation. Thankfully,
amicable. Just as seamlessly, clicked
apart. Now here, the staples, leftover
silvered remnants. Still boxed. Use them?
I could, but couldn’t. What was reduced
to stationery. Runs out like a lot of things.
Inevitable, I guess, I got it.

You only left the office
thirty minutes ago,
the tube’s atrocious at the best
of times, the worst of times
nightmarish, you say, I have already
bought us drinks and aren’t
the prices going up all the time now,
yeah, but it’s a rarity this, I don’t even
drink that much, Christmas,
barely touched a drop, talking of which
did you have a nice one? Yeah,
not bad, I say, back in the country
with the family, socks
and Boxing Day board games,
that period between the 25th
and New Year’s so odd isn’t it,
I nod yes, ask if you made resolutions,
you nod yes, sip drink, yes, might
do a half marathon if I can rope him
into it, oh that’s nice, three years
you’ve been with him now? Almost four,
a miracle, really, but I do love him,
I’ll bring him next time, he’d be here now
but he plays squash on Thursdays,
ah never mind, there’s always next time,
next time! You say, wine-in-mouth,
we must do this more often, sure,
I reply, knowing this,
knowing nothing.

I.

snowdrop flourishes
frost-baptised in dawn’s first light
rows of white applause

-----

II.

gathered family
state of gratitude and warmth
lights twinkling on tree

-----

III.

transient language
Boxing Day trodden whispers
in sky’s yuletide gift

you bring the crimson
makes a system skittish
foreign electricity
in staccato arrivals

X marks the spot
seems fact over fiction
but your code unravelable
gridlock enigma

the heartbeat knows
mystery loves mischief
though years become strangers
rainless scraps of cloud

no better should know better
adulthood in lowercase
when we meet French lullabies
may I drink from your throat

Crayon pink cheeks
shimmer, blossoming
commotion of the skies,

like dream bundles
leaking in from beyond
wrapped in emerald silk,

atmosphere's blush,
Christmas come early
with electrical waltz.