I am either one person.
or the persona I created.

don't think you like
the fat. black full stops
I offer. handshakes where
the gloom seeps through.

what is this. change
of season and a mind
squeezed lime-like.
know what's on
without having to look.

oh look. help drip-fed. when
you're in the mood
but stops short. or
a faded repeat of what's
come before.

don't tell me
I'll be liking you. next
for I'll only stub
my toes. Not gold standard.
Slip into the outfit
handed out by another.

inhale. leave it.
leave it
to early morning REM
and my silly illusions. where
the comma in your breath
suggests something more,

This,
the confirmation
of the already known.

The cementing of your love,
your own vivid blizzard
of it,

multi-sided shape
birthed from the collision,
theatre of hearts

that followed.
Now the premiere
of a new novel,

pages snow-white
to be set alight
by your shared language,

chapters written
by no other half,
but your whole.

Imagine, if you will,
an empty stretch
of carroty sand
and me and you
skedaddling up
to the waves as they unfurl out to us,
slide back in
like a dog’s tongue in heat
or two lovers’ lips
to say hello, farewell,
then hello again.

Imagine, if you will,
the two of us
on the beach
as the sun
dribbles down
like raindrops on a window,
afternoon into night
and our toes meshed together,
and our hands pressed together,
and our bodies together,
so close I can count
every time
your heart pounds,
beats with ecstasy.

Imagine, if you will,
what this is like
in a dream,
what it would be like
if you blinked
     and the scene
became real,
if you turned your head
and knew my eyes,
if I turned my head
and couldn’t take my eyes
away.

Then there’s the attire.
You spend hours checking yourself out
in the mirror, the drool across the floor,
******* of your dress
and the ******* smothered in lace.

Step back, look at that face.
The realisation seeping in
like blood into a bandage
that you are almost ready.
A cast of a hundred or so
seen-once-in-two-years
with eyes on your eyes,
the cold finger ringless for
just a few seconds more.

Here it is then, the moment when
you settle down
as a child clambering into bed
for a parent-read tale.
You have chosen this man
with this face and these hands
and he will do.
The search cannot be continued.

In one month, an argument.
In one year, a child
after the umpteenth round
of relatives' questions.
The story writes itself
and oh how plain it seems,
the predictability like gone-off milk
makes you want to gag.
But, you say, it’s how it goes.
How it goes.

The woman asks if it’s the one.
You’re flummoxed for a second -
the dress or the man?
Yes, you reply.
I think so.

when the Spice Girls came on
I knew it was time to leave

hour hand poking midnight
red cups bloated
with spit and tangerine *****

back slaps from strangers
opening and closing their mouths
like goldfishes on morphine

try to find you
through tobacco whispers
***** shots and near-**** Twister

and you're by the front
jacket in hand
we simply nod enough's enough

halfway home you ask
what a zigazig is

slowly          slowly
then in the space between   seconds

cerulean morning
shade of silence

my throat
or rather all of ours
on mute

raindrops
with their stop-start
arteries
on the window

it is an age
of invisible money
trickling into
strangers’ hands

burgundy bedsheets
box-sets

names that flicker
on and off
as if shouting them
across a lake
in high winds

twenty-five
a week before
the year of the dog

should be bounding
into things
with electric fingers

but they’re at work

and slowly          slowly

snooker’s on the box

In the middle
of a predicament

picking flowers for   you
   just because

rows of unusual names
green tubes dipped
with delicate baubles of colour

I’m eyeing up
   a volcano of roses

as a fuzzy aroma
   tickles my nose
   swirls into   my mouth

but aren’t roses cliché

aren’t bouquets the go-to gift
   for girlfriends
for friends   who are girls

I groan at the price
   but do it   just because

and because the woman said so
I choose a squad of others

so later

when   you place them in a glass vase

every time you smell that   funny smell

   you’ll think of roses
you’ll think of me

and us

Tonight
the stars pulsate
alone.

Our hands
twinkle with sweat,

words blend
together like clouds.

Our laughter
skitters through grass

and
I feel the lulling
throb of your blood.

The moon
glows white,

evening
loops itself around us.

I’ve got a buddy,
lives in Vinegar Hill.

   Was in the city for work
   so I called him,

waiting for the early morning
zip of caffeine,

   anything to coat my throat.
   He said absolutely.

Hadn’t been since they put
flowers on the corner,

   condensation of colour
   in a ribcage of streets.

The trees were naked
skinny things;

   I felt as bare and bland.
   The truth burnt, left a scar.

Still, I found love in a whirl
on a garage door,

   trickled out three syllables
   to a pretty blonde on a bike.

Window seat, $3.50 down.
Jack knew the waitress,

   her number too.
   Crimson cherries for earrings.

The sun licked us brighter.
Rotund pumpkins, manic eyes,

   toothless and forgotten.
   A beagle sneezed on the corner

of Jay and Plymouth.
Then a lazy detour down snaking Navy.

   A headline: Brooklyn needs jobs.
   Don’t we all, I muttered.

I could see a stars and stripes
with a rip through the middle,

   flapping as a mongrel’s tongue.
   I was thirty and single,

headaches and toast for breakfast,
coffee for blood.

   When I get to 9th, I said to Jack,
   I'll give Cherry a call.

blue like core of ocean
blue raspberry boulder
flecked with enamel

wind-ravaged land
far out full stop
unblemished by the likes of us

plastic population
whirling ball of selfies
and self-made destruction

but Neptune, blue
like your eyes adjusting to light
like the canvas of sky post-birth of rain

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

potent blue sky but ground laced with blood
stench of death in the air and on that August day
he joined the deceased Spaniard in the sun outspoken
generation of ’27 with the taste of poetry on his tongue
called a socialist partaking in abnormal activities
never found a single shot or several nobody knows
during La Guerra Civil the voice of a nation
quenched in the blink of a second

like the cellophane wings of a dragonfly
torn from its body so the whirr vanishes
or fire strangled out of someone
drenched with bullets of water

como las alas de celofán de una libélula
arrancadas de su cuerpo
para que desaparezca el zumbido
o fuego estrangulado afuera de alguien
empapado con balas de agua

Back at the start for the last time.
I get our drinks before you arrive,
£1.10 more expensive than when
we began dating, which sounds strange,
that word, ‘dating’,
it was only convening for cider,
a JD and coke twice a week after work,
you correcting the spelling
of children born post-Miracle of Istanbul,
me in front of a screen
splattered with numbers
imperative to any name but mine.

Now it was amicable.
Before, not at all.
A sort of swell inside me,
a boiling kettle, the shock tiptoeing through me
when you said enough.
I wanted to hurt you. Absurd.
I felt an uninvited sensation,
a sanding of the ribs,
a brain stapled again and again.
Later, I discovered you felt it too,
if not more so. I softened
like a block of fudge in the heat,
the fury dissipating as cigarette smoke.

You walk in; I get a different shock,
a cold jolt inside me, a voice that says
within an hour it will be over,
a footnote on the CV of my twenties,
April 2013 - October 2016.
You look great, more of an effort than me.
Lately, I’ve let myself go, no surprise.
We talk and laugh. I ought to shave, I know.
Joke about late-night Monopoly,
a fraction of our love, always ours.
The realisation it is a first time last date,
the closing of the door, the final word.

For a second, I am enthralled
at the thought of you, naked,
standing in the doorway to my room,
chestnut hair shimmying down your back.
It won’t occur again, not in that room,
not in that flat, not anywhere
besides a flicker of memory.

Our friends are getting married.
We’re not.
I think we both knew
it would crumble before long,
our relationship a headache tablet
dissolving speck by speck.
Pool, like we used to? you say.
Sure. Three games, I win two one.
Could we restart? Turn it off then on again?
I dare not ask.

I leave you to get the tube from Chalk Farm
as the half-blotto strangers
blare delight at an Arsenal goal.
A hug is too awkward,
shaking hands even worse,
but a hug is the gift. No kiss.
Seven seconds.
The back of you is how
I’ll remember you, walking away,
hands in pockets,
not looking back.

the sea will take you
if you let it
so don’t let it

the horizon
is a riddle
you’ll never reach
or come to answer

but there are bright faces
on the shore
poised to haul you
out from the crumbling waves

with hot chocolate
ready in a large black mug
and words from their throats
that will warm your core

In the midst
of a fiery debate
on Christmas music.

John says Mariah, hands down,
‘what a voice,
always have a shimmy to that
at the work do.’

Mike thinks Band Aid,
‘number one
for six years
but the original’s the best.’

Sharon believes Wham!
because if you can’t
have a bit of cheese
this time of year when can you.

I put forward the Pogues,
fist on table, ‘it must be the winner’,
and before I know it
we’re calling each other scumbags.

it’s a cinch, really

just yanking the duvet
back over yourself

shunning
the what-could-be-fun

or actually-might-not-be
best-to-stay-in

and that mist
how it loves to slither up

silver venom
sour headache

eyeless demon
eyeing you up

for a laugh
a ripple of giggles

in your ears
a squall of cymbals

ugly vowel-less
torrent of speech

a red light
****** iris

blinks across the shore
enough for you to bathe

in blue
confused puppet

lists of missed-outs
and the trash

you opted for instead

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

Met you in the red room.
Met you in the place
where we shattered our youth.
   I came as soon as I could
in the car, beer on my teeth
and my heart thumping mad.
You had called me up.
Dropped my phone in shock,
maybe laughed in surprise.
   Sixty miles - sixty minutes.
***** the traffic lights,
***** the state of my face,
my bloodshot eyes
yawning open with each blink.
   Inside, into our crimson heaven,
curtains drawn,
glass of milk in your hand.
The room of our eighteens
where we killed crushes,
lost bets and went home
no nearer to being adults.
   You’d put on that black shirt
I’d left one time before.
I’d forgotten all about it.
Yours now. Always yours.
   It was raining.
You gave me a towel,
I breathed in your smell.
No need for words,
I knew what you were saying.
   Took a step closer.
Both of us ready to shatter
whatever this was now.

Lost it.
Lost. It.
That’s what he said.
Lost it, last night, her place.
Not a phone or the house keys,
you know what.
Mutual, so that was a relief.
It was the lunchtime
that sent them all flocking.
A horde of eyes honed in on him,
excitement swimming in the air,
questions ready to hop
off from their tongues.
Nothing unexpected.
It is what it is, what we were taught.
He felt glad, a burden, a flaw
wrenched out from him
as though a sickness
swept away from within.

He said he wasn’t one of them anymore,
as though he’d moved into a new club
where this was the norm,
weekend gettings-it-on in bedrooms
riddled with indie-rock band posters
and a floral bedspread.
I asked him where he’d lost it.
Would he ever get it back,
like a football
punted into a hedge long ago?
A quizzical look.
I thought of everybody I knew
losing things, dropping that word
from their dictionaries
and scrawling something new
with a new body,
a sensation never quite like the first time.
Years disappeared,
myself the blank domino
among the pack.
I wonder if he can recall her name.
I didn’t admire him.
I was still one of them,
still am one of them
but there are no sighs.
It is only a moment of a moment
in a chapter in a story
that has yet to begin,
and I’ll decide
when the page is turned.

it is an especially warm day -
you drink orange juice
straight from the carton -

like many - a time for legs
on display - off and on
buses - but inside

a nametag states Harmony -
provides me with
a throat-cooling solution

before you sit in silence
with music I cannot hear -
drinking juice from the carton

I want to be the image
on a loop in your mind
a technicolor exclusive

the word that camomile
soothes your throat

teardrops of light
that speckle the walls
in dawn dreams

the little flame that melts
your frozen fist
of a heart

there'll be a ball of socks
hugging at the end of the bed

and you'll teach me phrases
my throat has never
truly felt before

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

I'm at the very edge of myself.
The night has arrived, my body
shocked numb, a cold
I am now accustomed to.

My reflection shows a forlorn face -
I tell it I wish I could whisper
flowers, each one delicate and white,
so they could float on a river

of dreams I made real.

I say
there is a crackle
of some undiscovered magic
when my lips close in on your skin,
fingers on your neck like touching the neck of a cello.

the air is dense
with guilt

smoke we made
that threatened
to devour us both
has gone

but our exclamation marks
still loiter
like unwelcome
dinner-party guests

we’re red-faced
and aching
from the tsunami of garbage
hurled franticly
about the place

but our eyes connect

our apologies
ready to float like balloons
from our mouths

I think a v
oice is co
ming ba
ck to me
caught up i
n the breeze

I’d turn it int
o a song
but my words a
re like water
gone too q
uick

you know the brit
tle moments
that cru
mble as a child
crushing a flow
er in their hands

you’re the gh
ost beside me
present b
ut never
really the
re at all

In the chair.
That’s where he was,
an unpleasant present.
Eyes shut,
feet up,
miniscule pills scattershot
on the plastic tray
to his right.
Could’ve been dreaming
except not this time.

We were entering a room
pregnant with death,
the newspaper
splattered with miserable headlines
unread and uncrinkled,
a streaky fingerprint
on a glass
left after his last mouthful.
I half expected his head
to loll forwards,
his face to **** awake
and say he simply nodded off.

I turned to her and said
I didn’t want to touch a thing.
This is how it is now,
an unremarkable date
stamped into our histories,
a silence only known
in the presence of a body
expunged of life,
of a pocket of breath.

Love is a funny word,
tossed around
recklessly,
thrown as if
a polished burgundy cricket ball
you’re supposed to catch
before it crosses the boundary.
It’s just a word,
no different than tea
or jodhpur or penguins
but we treat it as more,
said too little
or far too often,
a glittering jewel
seen as a trigger for something.
Use it if you mean it;
don’t mean it, it’s no use.

at the back of the shop

   gawping around
   like a little lost boy

     you
trying on a dress

****

     a bit revealing

but not too revealing
and an utter bargain
for what it is
  
   you said

   I see your feet shuffle
under the curtain

Christmas is coming
so I think don’t buy it
   I’ll get you it for Christmas

     your face will shine like tinsel
a gigantic grin
job well done from yours truly

     but you step out
into the light
   body wrapped in blizzard-white

a blaze of lipstick
and my heart

roly-polys

twirl
   gorgeous

really
   yes

     you think so
as you check your exquisite figure
   in the mirror
  
yes yes

   wear it all day
   all of tomorrow

oh my
   steady now
yes yes

another chalk-written name

thunderclap behind the eyes
no time to count the stars
that dance
or should that be burning

brush me in a language
unfamiliar
like a splash of a kiss
or smoke in the throat

tell myself what I think
you would say
know I won’t soak
in your roguish potion

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

and then you’ll have a child,
the first of maybe a trio
of slippery-skinned
shrieking new humans.
Over a bunch of months
you’ll watch the globe
inside your partner expand,
family members placing
a hand above the navel
to feel a kick, a thud
to incur a exclamation of glee,
at the idea of a person
on the edge of expulsion,
an uncooked multi-limbed being
you helped invent.

Then there will be nights of no sleep,
the traipsing to the cry
of your writhing baby,
all tears and open mouth bawl,
hoping you’ll supply
a response to pacify the mind.

There’ll be a morning
when you peer in the mirror
and see a single thread
of silvery hair
or tiny crimson quivers
in the whites of your eyes
and your child
will ****** a picture
to your chest
crammed with crude scribbles
of a sunny scene
and you’ll wonder
if it will ever be real again.

saffron wings
sleeves of copper
vanilla ice cream heaven

which was
a carnival of stars
in the first yawns of morning

which was
the first tepid trickle
of something returning

yourself
behind the wheel
sand snuggling your toes

which was
yourself with arms open
breathing again alive     alive

light-wisps
     tiptoe     through
gauze of green

     piccolo     chirrups
woodwind     refrain

     water burble
sweep     scattershot     rocks
     teeth of giants

pebble ensembles
     paths     buttered
with hair of Meliae

     brisk glottal     stop
pecker     on bark

     dead skin
and these taupe
     bones

almost tibias
     swell     skywards

sprout
     arthritic     fingers

that will fall
     amputate     beneath
                                       my feet

snowfall and stars
you shove gloved hands
into pockets
to warm them faster

the shimmer of ice
splintered by a slew
of children
and now us

touching you
my private ghost
body like smoke
thrill of a dangerous taste

what night
crawls into our heads
drips its silence
between the wind

what names
trickle into our throats
form like frost
on unfamiliar windows

presenting
my next initiation
3D spectacle

in spectacles
language of rust to be wiped away
sand letters by sea

one day   as planned
I'll be the prism
my colour chart sprayed

on the walls   fruit salad
of a room made familiar
your mouths a shock of smile

my fingers un-twitching
the precise words unrolled from my throat
not these but

Are you feeling the tangerine tide?
Are you hearing the squawk of sirens?

Blue Tuesdays,
a bare foot on the carpet,
another trivial tidbit
makes you feel uncomfortable.

A good six hours,
if they write words to you
they’re in invisible ink.

The front door, locked.
The paper says a reality star's
got knocked up, again.

Are you using two sugars?
The phone is a shrill instrument,
a headache your own
private hailstorm.

I thought I heard an echo
of something. A voice
saying do I know how to write.

Is it putting one foot in front
of the other? I swear I read it
somewhere, or was told it
long ago.

new melody I drink
disco fizz on my tongue
to strawberry ballet

chime of magic
down my spine
when you bless me with whispers

first time swimming
cathedral where echoes
make new constellations

handful of sunset
hundredth bouquet of thanks
look how you made room in your shadows

(     for me     )

It’s a heat that skims
off from the ground
and soaks the bones.
Music burrows
into the ears of suited men,
eating calorie-clogged burgers,
dripping onions
and then you’re in
a restaurant with blue tiles
hugging someone you haven’t seen
in six years
and time slips as treacle
under lights
in the bowl you sit in
with UFO’s blooming on the ceiling
like mammary flowers
and there’s a woman
with a bra on her head,
blonde hair like a mini blizzard
as for a moment
a throng of teenagers
in stripy socks
share sweat to Fleetwood Mac,
bees shimmying at something pretty.
It’s a scene you couldn’t picture,
except you could,
everybody has their phone out,
a flurry of colours
and drumming that drums
into your skull
like a shot of adrenaline.
Businessmen outside
swallow wine,
sit on the tube with blue ties
and rustle
the Evening Standard and its headlines
streaked with gloom.
Ticking towards Tuesday,
another man
eats another burger.
The hours pass,
the heat stays,
the music remains.

twenty years
since the days of maroon
jumpers tucked in
black shoes
golden time
and a thin blonde fringe

I look into the still
second circa 1998
faces of future
troublemakers
a lesbian
an ex of a friend

words non-existent
that would become
existent
like flowers
bursting
into the millennium

and long ago
split
marbles that roll
in different directions
same names
another age

century before
a time not sure
ever lived

Cat food is
a high priority
shopping list item.

A fly dies
its useless body
a pimple on the windowsill.

The pub is not an option
you know the man
in the cornershop quite well.

Your car has had
a toothache for
the past six years.

A phone call
is never good news
only your sister’s white noise.

The TV’s used
just for the lottery
but you’ll never win

and the cat meows
wondering where her
food has got to.

Me in jeans plus four others,
the nearest a guitarist,
black bag shape slung
over a seat, his sleeve
rolled high enough
to see a clamour of ink
in his skin, a ladder of colours.
He listens to music, white worms
lodged into ears.
Another, female, older,
glasses two-thirds down the nose,
much wrinkled Times between
her wrinkled fingers, glint of a ring,
the only one it seems, fatigue
rolling over her face.
The third, sweating, texting,
doesn’t look up, unaware to
anyone but the swirl of letters
on the screen beneath his eyes
where only he knows what exists.
The final guest is asleep,
or is pretending, head drooped
to a shoulder like a dog’s.
The train rattles on,
Monday night,
metal vessel of mysteries.
The musician glances up,
notices he is among a clutch
of others, sees me
and for maybe five, six seconds
does not look away,
his muddy-coloured irises
pouring into mine,
his boots scuffed with muck.
I cannot help but acknowledge
this unexpected attention,
but, flustered, I rustle for a book,
even though my exodus
is minutes away.
I flip to page sixty-two, he looks away,
and then back, swivelling, as if unsure
which way to stick, and there is
a fleeting stab of fear,
of what if in a shred of a second
he lunges across, a tattooed panther,
pins my wrists to the cold window,
spews his breath to my face
and grunts in that appallingly masculine way,
a way that suggests he’s in control,
ha ha *****, what you gonna do now?
when he wouldn’t be, I’d know.
I’d have a clear shot at the crotch
and even if the texter, sleeper, reader
didn’t spring to life, I could put a stop
to it, shove him from me like
yanking a piece of furniture across the room,
crank my voice into a bellow.
I can imagine the stupid mask
of shock on his stubbly face.
He could hurt me, of course he could,
anyone can hurt anyone
how they please, and I’m just as capable,
but I wouldn’t, shouldn’t
launch an attack of fists and kicks,
inject my words with venom.
This thought shrieks in my brain
and dies, squashed bug-like,
its pulse destroyed.
Always assuming the worst.
I’ll learn.
I don’t look at him again.
I don’t know if he looks at me
but he probably does,
thinking of a song he’ll write
or leftovers to eat,
or a missed opportunity.
The book slips to the floor,
for a moment, I forget,
I am being transported.
Everybody leaves, I am no exception,
standing, moving to the doors
that will open with a quiet whirr,
it slows and then a bit more,
bit more,
his memory of me
my ***, perfect in these jeans.
Typical. At least, I think,
it looks good.

when he opts for the obvious   again
this time   I think   will be the time
I finally pipe up and say what needs saying

that while I hope this fish dinner
satisfies you   the taste of the sea creature
on your lips   that salt and vinegar mixture

it ought to be me next to you   on the sofa
smiling or laughing at some ****** TV repeat
fork skewering the gone soggy chips

tips of our fingers stricken with grease
but worth it because our hands
will be a ruler’s width apart

and so   while I wrap your golden gift
slip the fiver into the till
as you puncture a Coke

I concoct my line of choice
something about fish
or how I’ll batter your wife

I walked along the shore,
   orchestra of shushes
as water slopped
                        across my bare toes,
jangle of pebbles
as I placed one foot
                                 in front of the other.

In the distance
                         the orangeade tang of neon lights
                         punctuated the view,
electric hyphens
from the arcades
crammed with Irn-Bru-skinned tourists
   there for a week
on this comma of coast.

In the winter          it is different.
A silver fug that sweeps the streets
     like the cocoons of a thousand ghosts,
machine jingles muzzled,
cafes only drip
                        fed with regulars
                                                     from around the corner
coming in to pick the horses
for the 2.10 at Uttoxeter.

The phone quaked in my pocket -
   my mother, calling me home.
I passed the sandcastle rubble,
   slobber of seaweed
   like the drool of a kelpie,

my socks speckled with sand
as I texted back
on my way

You taste the birth
of winter on your tongue,
that smack of cold.

Grass slobbered
in frost,

streetlights on
at half six,

stars like splinters
of glitter
in the night.

If we could touch them
they’d feel soft
as pillows,

glow bright as torches
to guide us the way home.

Every afternoon on their way back
from school, they get a ball
and start booting it
across the park opposite
my house,

****** crimson ties slack around their necks,
black uniform untucked.
Kim comes at half three,
asks if I’m doing ‘all right’?
Not bad.

An episode of Minder’s on the box,
teeth popping globes of green
grapes bought when in town.
Then, an electrocution,
a name.

Ted. His features start to swim in my head.
Next week marks fifteen years.
He used to play once.
Striker. He’d score a belter.
I’d cry.

these years go quicker
than you would’ve believed
five years ago

now the others
seem to be doing well
this one other

I look at the pictures
they have elected
to wallpaper

their pencil-case sized
portion of the web
and yes

between the shots
of leafy streets
meals reflected in mirrors

an emotionless selfie
one in every six
it is clear

they have gripped
the big city
or the other way around

and here
in your own mirror
straggly tufts of hair

glints of silver
sewn into teeth
thin crimson pitchforks

in the whites of the eyes
you wouldn’t know a life
like that if you walked into it

shook its hand
over a strangely-named drink
in a poky but affable bar

liquid silhouette
exposed toes
echoes that swim
through the room

apricot flame
candle burns
as do we
with each breath out

mist hush to windows
morning muscle crackle
stretch as roots
yawn into place

and with a flick
bend back
boomerang of the spine
arms like pillars

in a trance
birth of a wave
woman upended
moves her bones

chain of inhalations
human triskelion
little quivers
but steady soul

then retreat
from the shore
float away
flat again

a shuffle
before repeat
ready to go metronome
take off

screaming
out for something
wanting it
as a child’s hands
in the air in an attempt
to reach the teddy bear

one is in London
their name grows
like a yellow flower
I want to smell
and touch with my brittle fingers
sleep in the creases
I could be a ghost
or an outline of a figure
with a blueish hum
an inaudible echo

they dance under
streetlamps I have not seen
and **** in the glow
of others of course
who are painted
in shades of utmost tranquility
assured in their abilities
I want to reach into their mouths
and heave it out from them
have it all for myself

I feel the water
slip out from me
as if a rusty sieve
and nobody is catching
the little hexagonal pools
in the palms of their hands

streets my feet should be on
but a riddle of issues
erupt from the page
bad acne teen
harsh black bullet points
sinking into my lungs

there’s anthologies to share
splash through my dreams
because you can
I tiptoe into tomorrow
with holes in socks
uncertainty my electricity
finger at the switch

you are the darkest thing
I’ve ever known

gulp you like oxygen
arrhythmic tick in my lungs

static-crackling
in the pit of night

the seams bubble apart
our plot thick as blood