Here you are in those
purple-jelly dolly shoes
and you wonder why
the sky is blue when
the jam on your face
is a brilliant lipstick red.

Looking out to the sea,
there is art in the white,
frothing rinds like billows
of chalk softly skimming
each wave, or in the dark
blue of a day-old swelling
stretched across jelly skin
like spread blueberry jam,
or maybe in the bright red
jacket you wear, your hair
held to your face as you
grin like an absolute twit,
small fingers gripping on
to the rails as you peer over,
and in my grin is my reply
because I love you for it.

You made me a race
from the womb to
the itch and stretch
of a world for me
to traverse around.

Inches then meters
to stride against:
first the garden to
the park's expanse,
by then countries

are feet then miles,
and so I become like
the drip of cloud-tears
on car window panes,
shooting themselves

down the weathered
sheet to be closer
to an end of journey
that feels measured
by the centimetre.

I once wished
that we first met as friends, rather than
lovers,
that I knew your tongue

rolling against your teeth to
speak something honest before I felt it curling
around my skin.

Ever since,
I have tried to stay separate – I wanted

to paint portraits of the
earth, of luminaries and geodes,
but every picture looks like my body after ***
with you,
little crystals of you

cornering the emptiest parts of me.
I part as a flower blooms,
two years

and I realize I must believe in falling stars

now.