Now for too long drunk in your past,
dunked in your past
and you know I can't swim,
thrashing like an epileptic puppet
as each wave gurgled over me.

I guess you were a magnet,
hurling me toward you like
a cricket ball in the air,
except I was never caught,
the shiny maroon sphere
nowhere near your fingers.

Had to go and ruin it,
spoil it, but there wasn't an 'it',
a malleable object
for us to **** and poke
into our chosen shape.

You can't swim back either I suppose,
for the city screams
at you like an ambulance
and my head bobs above the surface,
I see silhouettes
move no nearer, no further.

She longs for home.
Stuck in this town
is taking its toll
on her.

Her flatmates
just don't give a ****
and students shout
outside her window

after a few.
She can't tell
if that boy likes her
or that guy

isn't interested.
All this hearsay
burns her ears.
Needs to get away,

relax in a more familiar
place with more familiar
people, pretend
that things aren't different.

She can remember
the good times,
outside the English room
on a warm June day

even though
she was revising for Science.
It'll be OK again soon.
Soon it will be back to normal.

I hold her arms
as she knocks the egg
against the bowl

a bump

a bit harder I say
again

a crackle
now pull it open
slowly

she gasps
as the yellow present
slops into the bowl

a lake of yolk
on flour mountain

I see it in a way
I haven’t seen before
as if I can see
and feel what she feels
a swell of pleasure

again she says

as I hand over another
from the cardboard box
excited for what comes next

Am I an eagle
with aluminium wings
in the electric night
or the mad man
watching mosaics
melt into stained-glass puddles?

Look into my bloodshot eyes,
speak to me in that Spanish susurro
and tell me to fly,
          tongue of lightning /violet horizon,
or I’ll be seeing colours in bubbles
dancing a marinera,
a manic stalactite-white grin
I’m not in control of wriggling
across my whiskered face.

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

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

As soon as the final cupful
of water was poured,
we’d hoist him from the plastic tub
and he’d jiggle as if electrocuted,
water flinging everywhere,
a wild tremor from head to tail.
Then we’d pat him dry
with a pink towel,
black hair glossier than ever
and he’d run
straight to the fence,
rub up against it
as if rubbing the freshness
out from his skin,
back and forth
with a goofy look on his face.

tourists with cider
avoid sludgy leftovers

  briny exhalations
  of the unknown undulations

   sun-pecked - wrinkled as though
   Christmas wrapping

   sand slobber
   up to a young girl's toes

  left its fluorescent residue
  as hairstyles for rocks

water's unravelled applause
where dogs aren't allowed

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

Wake up girl, rise and shine,
chances are you're not feeling fine.
Who's fault is that? Well, guess who?
Yet again it's the one and only you.

6am and not a clue
where you're going or what to do.
To me my darling that is a sign,
you're a little different now and you're crossing that line.

I’m sure I was once told about the ocean floor,
now believe me, I see it,
am living there in the unfathomable blue
and black, as though the wasted ink of the world
is a swarm meant to hold
the very lost, the going and gone.

If my throat is dry, forgive me,
for there is little left that shines,
has been rubbed to an almost-new sheen
for my language has shrivelled like fallen roses,
the dreams, waterlogged, a charcoal tinge
creeping in at the corners.

Perhaps it is the next necessary,
to douse the lungs in the spent blood
of everybody who has come before,
for there is no swimming, just floundering,
a fallen mannequin with a hyphen of light
one stretch too far away.

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

Fell asleep.
A dream within a dream.
My pillow a thin tartan blanket
we found crumpled at the back
of your cupboard,
discovered like a pearl
in an oyster or two.

Five metres away,
the sea,
graveyard of lungs
slinks kitten-like
towards the soles of our feet,
a cocktail of voices
swimming in the wind.

I scrabble for your hand.
It is smaller than I remember.
Feel the deep lines
criss-cross
across your palm,
specks of sand
corkscrew up a thumb.

Your hair is seaweed,
still dripping from when
you took a dive,
gulped up by the sea,
and gone gone gone.
I treat you
like my favourite secret.

Only an hour
has passed.
The waves shush us both
so I count the clouds.
They move as lazily
as the fingers of a clock.
And then, my eyes are shut.

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.

Picture this.

Two sides to every story.
Myself, on the left -
Europe, the last continental crumbs
before the disintegration into sea.

Ahead, Asia,
the buildings like cereal boxes,
first speckles of another side
of this sprawling cobweb city.

Students stroll down
Independence Avenue in Beyoğlu,
that half-swallowed ‘g’,
lozenge-shaped baklavas in hand.

A bevy of Galatasaray fans,
Aslanlar shirts, bypass a moving tram,
the air dense with the twitter
of the Turkish lexicon.

Two men, whirling dervishes,
revolving waves of white.
A self-waltz of sorts
around a bangle of spectators.

I see only passionate folk.
Veins thick of flag red.
One half of a world spliced
by a liquid thread.

so this
is the other side

insignificant
glide among stars

light-flecked
cloud corrugation

as if milk-dipped
slippery finger

land chunks
in mottled tones

erratic flashes
with violet feathers

and I can’t see you
but you’re there

somewhere
on the other side

I will post you my name.
I’ve been meaning to.
That way I can stain you

like blackberries would,
a fresh, juicy punnet of them
bought that very day,

your lips stippled violet
and the single syllable you read
the dizzy sprint of sugar.

so this is it
jumped ship
or whatever it's being called
these days

I feel myself
falling
Alice like
into a murkier space
than before

where the silence
gnaws at my brain
splinter of a twinkle
heavens above

quite obvious
what's happening
ignorance that flares up
like a blanket of acne

an excuse that drips
quick from the fingers

your game is peeling
from every corner
and rolling the dice

ain't as easy
as I found it
when you spoke
with an actual voice

Black hair
like oodles of shoelaces
on the surface.

Skin turns to tough rubber,
fingers are lollies
left to freeze in a dank cave.

Above, a melting sky,
wonky blue and white
too far from wrinkled hands.

Electronic voices stutter
into her ears, a gargly reply
floats to nowhere.

Each second adds up,
each second closer to blackout,
perhaps a slow-motion wave cheerio?

She drifts deeper down,
a wrecked puppet
asleep in the sea.

Unable to inhale,
throat begins to scrunch
like a paper cup.

Playing pool at 5am,
see the sun rise and seep
between mouthfuls
of double choc-chip cookies,
Mountain Dew cooling our throats
like antifreeze into a car.
I gather up your laughter for rainy days,
everything dripping in colours
that haven’t been christened.
Your fingerprint wriggles
form an island chain on the piano,
wet symbols, bathroom carpet
where you got out the shower
in a sky-blue towel;
I hid under the bed.
I tell you you’re messing
with an amateur,
kisses are pleasant glitches
but I’d miss and trip
through the open window.
My hands become flappy utensils
when I explain years months days
of apple cores piled up
behind wardrobes,
my portfolio of fiascos.
Faults are found like Easter eggs -
squeezed from toothpaste tubes,
top shelf of the oven.
This is a dark one here,
a miniature pill.
You only bring mugs
of youthful exuberance to the table.
A click. A shlock.
I turn my head,
the game lost
within a blizzard of minutes.
It’s OK I say,
I wanted you to win.

awaken
to white shroud

unblemished page
from pregnant sky

sieved silence
in languid waltz

to sigh to glass
punctuate the scrawny

exclamations
of a naked tree

as though a blessing
enamel acceptance

They sit on the side,
discarded like a football
after a PE lesson.

A slight scratch
on one lens,
long and white.

They’re old and weak,
more fragile,
more bleak.

More flaws.
The rose pattern on them
is fading. Almost gone.

They should be replaced,
but we know that won't happen.
They’re still beautiful somehow.

As time passes,
they are more of a spectacle.
With or without that scratch.

But your glasses, a familiar sight
on the side in the sunlight.
Alone again.

When the time comes
to prise open the plastic
tomb that encapsulates your three
tiers of soft biscuit-toned sponge,
the creamy middle stratum
with pinkish strawberry streaks
I take a crew of old plastic
candles used for this occasion only,
lit, wished and blown upon eight times
previously when poked in cakes
of yesteryear, **** them in the snowfall
sugar cloak, spaced out, baptise them
with flame until their flickers
extinguish and your ninth birthday
burns on, mutely drips into a pocket
full of your own past.

Everything is blue.
Sometimes, it is blue for you
like the tongue of the sea
or the Pacific
when the sun
drools upon it.

Other times - electric.
A bright, gaudy blue
nobody can miss
as the vibrant shade of the sky
or turquoise
in your teeth.

I remember when you longed
for blue, the darkest tones.
Your mood was deep blue
like the deep red of blood,
the colour of evening,
impending midnight.

You made everything ice,
the trees, the grass,
your digits chilled baby blue.
I offered you gloves
but you knocked them
from my hands.

Then, for a moment,
a pinprick of green.

Green was a gem.
Green was a rarity
like a white Christmas.
I told you to chase,
to run after it
but the blue held you back.

I said 'how are you today?'
Never yellow, never orange,
you spoke blue,
spat sapphires,
every object, item
glazed over azure.

I wanted you green.
Avocado, mint, emerald green
but it never stayed long.
Blue waves would come
and gulp
your good food.

Now you flit between them,
cellophane
dancing behind your eyes.
One day, drowned in blue,
one day, swimming
green.

the heartbeat rumble
in your ears
is the signal
you’ve been waiting for
   a warning
that too much
has piled up
and your head
has gone all Kandinsky
   blood lights
blinking like sequins
in the crook of your vision
   tangle of duvet
half lolloped on the floor
   echo
of a neighbour’s conversation
a gloopy mumble
through the walls
   and you’re thinking
of skin the colour of wheat
un-lipsticked lips
   a song that hasn’t been written
but the words exist
longing for you to pluck them
like a novel from a shelf
in a second-hand shop
   a thunderclap
snaps you back
to the same room
the same face
looking back from the mirror
with its wet blueberry eyes
   and you say
you have a story
fashioned from mashed potato
and sticky tape
   all it needs is a listener
to kiss a whisper
to your neck
drip syllables
that glow as torches
tell you everything is fine
   your listener
as the shower rain
leaves a network of streets
jogging down your cheeks

The man decked in blue
     sits quite content
          on a sofa
               and observes wealthy offspring

               waltz in flashing their brilliant teeth
          glossed with potent peppermint.
     These teens
don't know love,

lust is all it is.
     While the Jazz bops away,
          more whisky is poured
               and they zip out to get jammy.

               The man, mid-twenties,
          kind of blue, dapper apparel,
     has one on the rocks.
Sees them

walk in most evenings,
     cute blondes with flawless skin,
          guys in suits, bow ties, the works,
               gaze into each other's pupils.

               There are regulars,
          Robert, the chap from Yale,
     Quentin, sly guy at Harvard
and Carly, still at school the man believes,

who's coquettish, fresh,
     these two want to have her
          but she's astute,
               knows just what she wants.

               They're all after her in fact.
          Every male in the room
     turns their head,
can't blame them,

she's like Candyfloss,
     all the men want a taste
          but there's not enough for everyone
               and they don't look like the sharing kind.

               The man in blue
          just grins to himself
     thinking how grand it is
that he's single, sensible, secure.

splash into it -
   blue raspberry universe,
sugar stars skin-drizzle
   a frisson - you generate
  
a thousand deliriums,
   delectable therapy,
web-caught but purified
   by bubblegum ellipses -

a secret (let's keep it),
   a fantasy I dare
not name as I taste
   the alphabet on your tongue -

Blue shirt
I can’t trust a boy like you.
Sectarian sympathiser,
driving brothers apart.

I see a glint in your eye
whenever I
lean in for the unanswered kiss
self-assuredness is your favourite

amuse bouche. Nice with a fine wine
tastes a little like shellfish.
Picpoul de Pinet
for a girl that’s hardy on the outside.

Just when I am starting to turn
purple on the lips
you breathe air into me
and hide again.

----------

Believe me,
there’s red in these veins
and flames in my lungs.
Your eyes

eye me up, river blue.
Chip fat and *** smoke
make out for a foul cloud but
girl, you’re the pearl of the night.

Your mouth is the glossy phone
I should answer,
wanting love on a tongue
like a pillow of wine.

When you grip my shirt,
expect to connect, I end up
pouring out puddles of nothing,
your lips apart like violets.

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

purr together

   chrysalis
     of skin

tangram of
                 bones

corrugated teeth

and     ping-pong     ball
   elbows

in sync

crackling like
radio
   static

   as fingers
dribble
   over the   frets
     of our spines

psychedelic eyes
lips charged

our   fragile frames
     moving

   fluid

You don’t know how long it’s been,
a leftover, how many times
my chalky residue, the what remains
after the batteries run down,
has glided through these rooms,
liquid silk when you’re sleeping.

Pearlescent appendages,
no junction of veins, heart-clunk,
see through what once was
a sac of odd-shaped blobs,
viscous memories gone to condensation
as if fiction, recycled in silence.

No wonder you feel the chill.
An anaemic blur down the stairs
unsurprisingly frightens but know
it’s only my gaseous way
of trying to live, the only way
to breathe to leave ellipses of smoke.

A hum among our tall crowd of flowers,
a small cylinder in feeble sunlight
hops along a rainbow before showers,
tin clouds now suffocate the yolk from sight.

Dressed in a garish old knitted jumper,
I watch as it slurps every face dry
and can you hear? The grumble of thunder
but still the bee murmurs, fizzes on by.

Sun covered up, a cloak made of metal,
not long until all drains choke, gutters leak,
this insect sits on a topaz petal,
looks out for a first silver drop to break.

Now the bee jumps, has committed its theft,
a blur in a downpour, exiting left.

the snow flirts with you better than I can
when we walk back from the bookstore,
where books are discounted for one week only
and we passed recommendations
between the shelves and said
I heard this one’s good.

there’s discarded masks by the subway entrance
like malformed *****, mouthless and obsolete,
a whiff of Korean food that meanders
out from the takeaway
and I offload corny joke after corny joke not even worthy
for the back of a beermat
or graffiti-besieged toilet cubicle but you laugh
anyway out of pity I suspect,

the sack of books (Vonnegut, Glück, Didion) seesawing
by your side, our footprints a transitory
punchline behind us.

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.

The red shirt is torn,
an eyelash ****,
your skin exposed
but no blood.
You were born for this.

I dig in my silver weapon,
sever your synapses.
With each new cut
comes a soggy cream sheet
and you sigh and you sigh.

It was inevitable.
Fixed smiles
flop from your spine,
see-saw on the board
and form a wrecked star.

Now just your teeth,
the brown raindrops.
I use my thumb
to tug them out,
dislocated, then gone.

Many evenings, the curtains drawn,
you slept restless
as a new-born accepting
their life and the world.

Quilted in night
but come morning
you'd rise again,
write the branches of your tree.

Black upon a fresh page,
every word still in the breeze
long after your roots
were destroyed.

Sometimes I only watch
the waves tumble
as a blue rug
over a flight of stairs,
other times I want them
to pummel me,
wallop into me like boulders
and smash against my ribs
again and again
and again,
feel my digits wrinkle
like a rotten fruit,
feel the water splash on my lips
and know it's alright
if I dunk down
surrounded by swathes
of aqua satin,
hear a rattling,
an amplified burble in my ears,
aware it's just me and the sea,
the sea can have me,
I'll allow it.

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.

we eat strawberries at the table
in our underwear and the television
tells us we’re at war again, by which
I mean not specifically us, but you
know what I mean. I have left last
night’s still half-full glasses by the sink
because we might go back to them
and the drink itself was expensive
enough. As you pick another ruby
***** from the bowl I think
I get it now, how not to be
jealous of others, of their closed doors
intimacy. It’s different when you’re in it,
head-first, sugar-rushed, red-mouthed.
There is rain forecast for today;
already pewter clouds are behind
the windows which means any plans
we might have made are almost certainly
scuppered, but at least the two
of us are together, for now if not forever,
I suppose you can never really tell.

Here it comes,
what we weren’t expecting.
Thankfully you have one with you
so you fish it out
before the drizzle
becomes a downpour,
press the button
and watch it pop open
like an airbag,
the spindly blue tent
to protect us
from the wet.

We huddle together
as marshmallows in a bag,
as fruit in a bowl,
listen to the spattering,
the clattering of stuff
from the sky,
rounds of applause
dropping off the edge
onto sand.

I hope it stops soon.
     Yeah, me too, me too.
You grab my dry hand
as we shuffle closer,
only able to hear the rush
of the rain.

One day
you'll turn over
in the bed you bought together
in the bedroom you rent together
surrounded by items
that are now 'ours' and not 'mine'
as the first light
stutters across her cheek
and you'll wonder
if this is how
it will always be
the grey familiarity
infecting you
like a go-to drug
that doesn't do the job
so well anymore

I.

cold winter morning
windscreens glazed in silver dust
pavements and grass wet

---

II.

crew of coloured shapes
clamour underneath the tree
concealed for now

---

III.

and the food comes in
steaming green vegetables
spuds like chunks of gold

I don’t know
exactly what it is.
There are terms
that could be gibberish,
two languages knocked together
to form a disease,
an affliction of the mind
or fluid in the lungs.
I got a list of ailments
as long as a scroll of parchment,
lolling on the floor
like a tired dog’s tongue.
Often people ask, ‘what is wrong?’
They expect you to have
something wrong with you,
a problem that rises
like the sun on the horizon,
or floating like a lost bottle
way out to sea.
If it is just a headache, it is that,
just a headache.
Would I not know
if the issue was worse?
Perhaps not.
Perhaps it is the not knowing
that kills you, or renders you helpless.
It is sad to know this will come,
this bizarre helplessness,
either in a ripple of seconds
or the space between seasons.

Bright     blue      skewers      the      dark,
navy      fingers      grow­      into      nothing.

A   young   girl's   helium   squeal   hisses   high,
'oooh.....ahhhh.'
Emerald   gunshot   ends   another   life.

Velcro-splitting,
amber   glitter
sparkles   upon
the   night's   stars.

Toothpicks ***** the sky,
crimson ribbons dribble down
like blood dripping from a nose.

The orchestra of colour plays
before black devours them all again.

Two women, we think,
are on a date,
leaning forwards
across the wooden table
in this restaurant
called ‘ood’ because
the lights outside
are not all working properly.

It is that day after all,
the day of much gushing,
duvets peppered with flaky paper hearts,
florists raking the money in,
and in this instance,
two women having a meal,
maybe getting to know
each other’s little quirks,
the idiosyncrasies that make them them.

We can only assume.
The journey home,
the tension turning bonfire red.
What will become of them tonight,
in the morning, a double bed
actually used for two,
a bathroom mirror stealing
a newcomer’s face.

I turn to you
in my drizzle-flecked coat,
say maybe it’s just a business meeting,
no flirtation, just figures.
Not everybody does dates.
Except these women do,
or will do, we assume,
in the ten seconds it takes
to walk past
on our way back to your car.

crimson shiver
across a herd of puddles

OPEN 24/7 ruby lights
entice

cocktails
with silly names

rusted hearts
on cubicle doors

dried blood punctures
wall of wounds

where new-born couples
spill their lust

lipstick leftovers
from a thousand calamities

raspberry dress flicker
face with no name

your kiss a delicious ampersand
on my skin

place your ear to the Wall
it’s OK
they can’t hear

somebody’s Coughing
and somewhere
she is Pouring
a cup of tea

the steam up Ups
sticks to the windows

Stand
in a place where
the buildings are old
but New to them

you could be there
Burnt tongue
Jittery fingers

squashed by noise
encased in Foil

you don’t tie shoelaces
clear your throat
and slap a Face on
that’ll Do

the specks could be
Floating away
concerns brought
down South

their smile is Honey
your Head is baking a cake

listening?
heard Enough
Windows watch you
watch yourself
Drink

I want to feel those feelings,
those indefinable feelings
of hopscotching
towards it,
one foot in front of the other
to experience
the maudlin aqua-eyed
moments in rain,
jeans
and midnight skirts.

Taking every step necessary
to evade black lakes
down your cheeks,
hot blood on my fingertips.

And there'd be a song,
cordial and soft
on the piano,
delicate
like carnation petals,
writing lyrics
on each other's arms
in multi-coloured ink,
letters that hop
up to our elbows.

How to feel what it's like
with another one,
opposite and the same
all at once.

Cheerful dreams,
placid days
on streets, in homes
with brown drinks,
single and un-single friends
who say 'I knew you two would...'
and to show our love
our hands would touch
and our lips would touch
and the lights would rise.

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

You say we should build one,
I say we're not six-year-olds anymore
but you coax me into it
and I find myself
digging with a blue plastic *****
but you use your hands,
scooping up lumps of the stuff.
I notice how some gets stuck
in your fingernails,
how the tip of your thumb
has been stippled orange
but I laugh when you tell me
it's nice to feel young again
and I feel it too
although you, not the building
has more to do with that.

We don't stop,
we make a whole row of them,
name them after ourselves,
feel so proud of our work
like builders after a long day,
but it's still morning for us
and every-time you stand,
tiptoe up to the sea,
I get so stupidly worried
the tide might take you away.