She walks through the congested room,
small smile on her immaculate face.
Battenberg pink lips in a place packed chaotically
with men in dark shirts, skin coated in shiny sweat.

But our girl is dressed in a see-through white,
clutching a toffee bag, she moves further into the pit.
Her eyelids flicker enigmatic ebony,
waves of bronze hair roll down past the shoulders.

We’ve never met, we may never meet at all
but my days she is dazzling, a rush of fresh air.
In a different place in a different time,
who knows? Would I be pricked by such profound beauty?

I don’t know how I came across your name,
found your photos and was taken aback.
Nevertheless glad my eyes have seen your brilliance,
but let’s get back to real life now shall we?

I didn’t want to.
He’d just got in from work
and flung the keys
into the bowl
so the clatter rattled
into the kitchen
where I was taking out
the chocolate fingers
from the Sainsbury’s bag
and I still hadn’t shut
the fridge door
so my right arm
was going cold.

He came up behind me
and groaned
and I assumed it meant
he’d had a long day
except everybody’s day
is the same length
but he put his arms around
my chest
subtracted the bottle
of Gordon’s gin
from the bag
and said we’ll be drinking
some of that tonight
I could do with it.

Then it came.
He asked if I’d called.
I said no because
what am I supposed to say
it’s too far to drive
on a Friday night
and they’ve got roadworks
on that roundabout still
but he butted in
like a cough in a quiet room
and said fish
and chips for tea then
been a while.

Picked up the phone
offered it to me
as though a pig’s ear
to a Labrador
and I thought stuff it
as he shut the fridge
so I reluctantly poked
at the numbers
and heard the bloop
again and again
and said to my mother
how’s this evening.

Sorry yes sorry
what yeah OK
no better right I see
yeah my fault I know
that long right yeah
so half seven
yep OK half seven.

It’s just I don’t like
the idea of monitors
and plastic-y tubes
and doctors with PhD’s
spurting words
buried in a dictionary’s depths
but he put his hands
around my chest again
and we said nothing
for a moment or two
until he said
I’m going for a shower babe
alright.

freckle constellation
clouds like wet peach wedges

Tetris-brick walls
and mint green street signs

a woman
talks on her phone
by the dry-cleaners

a chef speaks Greek
hands coated in hair
swollen worm veins

students kiss
with their rosy mouths
serve arms for a taxi

buy a gun
stick of gum

a book on the top shelf
third edition
pencilled-in price

traffic stomach-ache
kaleidoscopic car horns

your name
like drops of honey
so good

drops of honey
your name

The one with the
         crack
along the middle,
dark and so thin
words could fall through
like water in a colander.

Under the grand chandelier,
a slew of sheets
spat with confident blue juice,
cardboard-covered notebooks,
a team of paper ***** to be tossed
towards your wooden jail.

Sketches of mice, polar bears,
a recipe for rabbit at his right elbow,
red Shakespeare
and a well-read thesaurus
as scruffy
as recently rinsed blonde hair.

You always ***** the lid
on your own *** of ink, black,
sleeping silver scissors
near your French dictionary
and shells over a plastic
sunglasses case.

The table
in the room
in the house on Tomás Ortuño,
serenity bathing you,
a golden spark
of solitude.

How many have stood,
will stand beside you
in Heptonstall,
had a photo taken
next to her spot?
Students, admirers
from any nook or cranny
with drained biros,
Ariel under an arm,
her morning song spoken
again, and again.

You're the next-door neighbours
they haven't come to see.
Only a lonely cup
of coffee-stained
hunchbacked flowers
where you lie
in loving memory,
with Emily,
husband with wife,
home to the right
of the graveyard's star.

What you should have done
instead of throwing your clothes
was let the water run
from the rusty ‘H’ tap,
heard, watched it splash, gush
in the long white tub
to almost near the top.

Then what you should have done
is dipped your petite frame
into the steaming transparency,
feet first, felt it scald
every individual toe,
see the intense red
flush your pale skin,
blotches of crushed raspberries
rising up your **** legs.

Once under,
you could have sunk so far down
so only your nose and eyes were dry,
a scrambled mess of blonde straws
stuck to the surface,
and each muscle would relax
like an aged writer in an armchair.
You'd be cured again, new again,
if only ephemeral.

blue like a loose carrier bag
blue like rainfall

you feel that
tight tangle
suddenly blooming bruise

inside your xylophone

a common taste
but a different language

mi dispiace, non parlo italiano

wish I knew you
wish my single syllable
was your drink of choice

blue like cracked ice
blue like brushing teeth

reach into the vegetable soup
of your mind

here! a paragraph
made from colourful buttons
and not so sticky tape

mon français n'est pas très bon

wet hair and brown eyes
will satisfy me nicely

or brown eyes and wet hair

miles and minutes
and seconds
and seconds

disculpe

and seconds

är detta rätt?

nicotine no thanks
silence will **** you
decay the veins

blue like so-called heartbreak
blue like too much space

and seconds

the
     children
          in
     the
park
     are
          chasing
     stars
again
     the
          dog
     lolloping
along
     all
          tongue
     flopping
spit
     chucking
          sky
     is
a
     tapestry
          of
     blueberries
and
     giggles
          fill
     the
night
     hunting
          all
     the
teeth
     the
          fairies
     pinched
before

Your body is as dark as the night
and I love it

if only I could slip
into your shadow

when the lights expire

my breaths
wouldn’t feel like flames

blossoming in my chest

I welcomed you into my labyrinth,
shut all the doors,
drizzled blankets across
everything, each squashy chair
where you could rest your head,
leave remnants of you
in perfume and hair
so I wouldn’t forget.
Little pictures
developed in my hands,
a simple magic trick
which made us smile
as sniggering kids.
Then they dropped to the floor,
created a collage
of recent memories,
our private history
stationary and square.
Bricks cold as frost on grass,
you danced,
I fell deep. A soporific
multi-hued haze played in my eyes
as if it was endless hopscotch.
Sunset glazed our faces
a marmalade-orange,
we lost ourselves
in towers of books
and images
which now spread
beanstalk-like up the wall.
Pinch-marks resembled
berries on my arms,
soaking in madness,
basking in your light.
I could rest in this maze forever
you said.
Then I, in frustration,
turned over in bed.

Foetus,
eyes to the floor
for fifteen minutes,
ramshackle thoughts
rattle like old objects in a toybox,
lights off and imaginary people
to talk to.
Sipping fruity juice
as girls smash together.
The trivial things bring chaos
in great big buckets.
They say I’m OK;
I say I am losing it
losing it.

more bronzed

rectangular packets
of muscle
almost visible

underneath
another white tight shirt

the stench of deodorant
or aftershave
or cologne

or a cocktail of three

enough to send
a throng of blondes
in my direction

eyes like sapphire halos
cheeks that shimmer

phones infested
by a palette of pictures

all samey
all shots of a head
tilted this way
that way
back again

and if only
a little more funny

pouring jokes
in with your drink

giggles reverberating off
from the gaudy lights

looking so Instagrammable

we’d have fan accounts
by Monday
our own personal emoji

ITV wanting us for a series
and a blue tick on Twitter

you see it too
you must

and if you say

look babe
we look good together

I’d smile and say

yeah babe don’t we just

then you would be wrong.
I have many more words
to leak from my fingertips.

I think of the couple making love
to Calvin Harris songs;
what a way to annihilate
the purest of evenings.

I imagine the man with gums
coated in whisky,
the beat under his wisdom teeth,
tie slack around his neck.

I think of the body in the bath,
the stillness of such a scene,
the silent blush of crimson
like a throng of roses.

There are not just grim slivers of life.
I will catch the moments soaked in sun.
The pen is ready,
the poems will come.

So we decided to light candles

the box at the back of the cupboard
collecting dust like a man collects stamps

and because there were so many
you had to use three matches

a coarse shriek as you scratched
the stick against the side

and you moved around the room
holding it between *******

as a lurid pumpkin glow
slobbered up the radiator.

Soon after a scent
resembling a shiny toffee apple

you’d used a ‘smelly candle’
a fuzzy aroma in my nose

and when we went to bed
the flames still quivered

pools of melted wax
like burgundy blood wounds.

and it rings, and rings,
each shrill chirrup like a triumph;
your defeat, multiplied.

This is my own unanswerable riposte. A month,
almost, has passed. I know it’s you.
Once, accidentally, in a frantic, slapstick
dash from the bath, I made the blunder
and your voice slipped into my ear.
Your pitiable way of saying it was a mistake.
I presented you silence, gift-wrapped for free,
dripped back to the tub, each wet glyph
another step away from our despicable was.

Still, it rings.
I imagine them as punches to you,
not soft blows but great, leaden thumps,
a ricochet of knuckles on cheeks,
of these rings off from the walls
I deliberately, deliciously ignore.

Every quarter hour, a jolt,
a quick think of is this childish.
After all, at this hour and age,
must I resort to letting this black reptile
hark for my attention, coffees
gone cold, the LPs supermarket-queued
on the table we bought
with your mother's vouchers.

But yes. It rings, again,
I have lost count now the times.
I know it’s you.
The hour hand
pokes ten, the dog twitches
in its pool of sleep.
Still, darling, I provide my answer.

these four walls
better than the back of my hand,
better than the staccato of my pummelled heart.

A newspaper I didn’t buy
tells me we are going up in a yelp of smoke,
those who endure left to select a disease.

Now my nose bleeds,
the phone chirrups and there can only be
rotten syllables on the other end, whispers in the back.

With eyes daubed in lethargy,
I watch you move. Half a clock later
and you’re miles gone. I would say I’m surprised

but no, I’m not.

let me tell you this
the numbers increase
then restart and you change
in increments
like the yellowing of a book
or erosion of a stone
if you must talk sit comfortably
with a beverage of your choosing
and say plainly
here I am
here’s the story of it all

let me tell you about music
about how Boys Don’t Cry
how I sit and let the melancholic
twang of a guitar
and ripple of drums submerge me
like a wave on a winter night
how the syllables of erstwhile years
still hit as hard as cricket *****

let me tell you about the television
the what we don’t need and reality
warped past the point of reality
breathing out the same few sentences
at midday and rat-a-tat of gunfire
on a street of sixteens
or in a dusty ramshackle of a town
now bounding into the spotlight

let me tell you about anxiety
about the bending extending
of my fingers
the inbound heatwave
at the front of my skull
the potentials that rattle
rainmaker until I hear my voice
telling my own voice off

let me tell you about the online world
the vanity that froths across the screen
strangers trying to be strangers
the illusions blow-dried primped
glazed over in a calorific gloss
or the pitter-patter of a criticism
that will unavoidably come
because it can
because this is how you open your mouth
when you can’t be seen

let me tell you about motivation
how it trickles like sand out of me
how it is steam on a windowpane
silvery and ready for me to play
but gone before the first curl of a word
is poured into place
I find naked envelopes everywhere
what is needed concealed under the bed
at the end of a lines-are-busy call

let me tell you about intimacy
to me an outline of a ghost
or an unidentifiable shape
like a face caught in a puddle
there goes a couple
in the first swirl of not-quite love
there are two teens
photographing the evidence
that they are a serious business
thank you very much
condoms instead of pick ‘n’ mix
holding a phone instead of holding a hand

let me tell you
this is how it is
or my version
different from your version
but the roots are the same roots
the premise about the same
do you have questions
It’s not a surprise and I told you
the numbers increase
then restart and you change
in increments

There is no longer a light,                                                      
for a long time, well, it’s been hard to cope.                                      
April will see that girl’s flight.                                            

My, I remember that June night                                          
long ago when I wished to elope.                                                  
There is no longer a light.                                                      

How­ I'd like to end this plight,                                  
all I do is sit and mope.                                                      
April­ will see that girl’s flight.                                            

I’m weighed down by this paperweight,                                                     ­ 
pain throbs inside, so fierce, no hope.                                          
There is no longer a light.                                                    

If only she came back into sight
instead of hidden under the microscope.                      
April will see that girl’s flight.                                            

Unless the torch again shines bright
and halts me as I fall down the *****,                                                  
There is no longer a light.                                                  
April will see that girl’s flight.

fall into myself again

i am the pale flower
you left out in the rain

never growing

but these things take time

one morning will sing

ring-a-ding-ding
inauguration day

become yourself again

champagne voice
or a cliché of your choice

does the new year
come in April

leaves that surf the breeze
got yourself going green

soak those lungs
with that fresh air

will it come it will come

you don't think it
but know it

the fog can only cradle you
for so long

until you grow

like spring flowers

So I’ll let your garland of notes
glide over, heal me as if
the pinnacle of medicinal
discovery, vibrato in my arteries;

even the bass, its storm-cloud
laconic dialogue
can be a remedy, prescription-free
pipsqueak blue drops,

each cymbal hiss
a swig of thick ginger fluid
will calm the throat but
keep my heart revving over;

the glass is raised, melody
you give in waves, a tincture
applied to cool, a salve
to channel salvation.

floating
   tapestry of infinities

sparkles like the distance
   is sprinkled with apostrophes

lilac ribbons
   teal condensation

and somewhere
   in the middle of a middle

our spherical mass
  of wet paint-brushed clouds

blobs of rock
   brimming with us invisibles

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

Hours taken by sea
butter sunshine gone
to a chalky lavender smudge

our feet made prints
in piles of freckles
skin tickled by heat

are you in my head
pirouetting
between dreams

or real as diamonds
(so you’d know
about kisses)

you filled hollowness
with petals
cups of lust

played
my fragile xylophone
like an expert

swapped it
for a piano
made it sing

you’re the pearl
on my palm
in a thunderstorm

my sweet speck
of dark magic
at sunrise

I pull away
for you to tug me
right back in again

A grotty morning.
Grass pecked by frost overnight,
lead fug in the air
and I'm walking a mile
in uncomfortable shoes.

The receptionist
warbles a song I don’t know.
Ten minutes of maths  
followed by the typical
compote of questions again.

Two year four children
navigate me past classrooms,
primary colours,
shaking hands and nodding heads,
facts that drizzle over me.

Hours pass, phone cries.
The answer swells blister-like.
It’s thanks but no thanks.
He pours advice, wishes well.
I hurtle back to the start.

Fingers fumble at buttons
liquorice in our breath
misty fug of your name
still lingers on the window
it watches
toes like bent paperclips
fidget impatiently
glass half-full of lemon and lime
little bubbles little fizzes
mute television
goldfish mouths with no sound
this evening
'vamp' your chosen shade
exposed navel heartbeats
blood thump in ear
a sock falls off
the other overboard already
twenty fingers
it's alright
I say it's fine it's alright

how much longer must I miss
what I never knew

twisted nostalgia like a drop
of lemon on my tongue

sent sugar-dizzy
   by the crystallised

thought of you
in that black dress

rainfall we knew   was coming
like another disappointment

   days become water
maybe they   already were

their silence     bruises me
in new yet   unsurprising ways

I am assaulted
     by their     idiocy

you wouldn’t believe     me
if I said   this was a     slip

     my head the     forest fire
   the drought     to     come

you the     flood
     I foolishly   crave

call a crime scene
there was a bang cracked
the day wide open

flip through the images
like police reports
who's arresting me next

neckerchief suits you
and the galaxy dances
on your ceiling at night

could be I'm seeing you
with a new prescription
shake rattle and roll

can't handle the bolts
imaginary electricity
is your skin plugged in

name may be cinnamon-made
or strawberry sauce but
Monday isn't a Sunday

to the bottom of it
red hair resuscitation ring me
if anything changes

and we went for coffee
at the cafe round the corner
where the guy
who served us looked like
a wannabe rock star,
where the seats were cold,
a buttermilk colour.
I remember your lips
were strawberry red -
I wore a liquorice jet-black jacket
that was too small for me.
Then somehow
like a shirt in the wash
the conversation changed
to the other side of things,
what we both had written
over the days of dying summer.
'Plenty, you?' is what you said
sipping from the white mug.
'Not much, no surprise' my riposte,
glasses harassed
by caffeine-full clouds as I drank.
Then the fog cleared,
I could see again
sinking into your seawater eyes
and I muttered how I'd scrawl down
something about you
sometime.
This isn't it.
Here’s to another day.

you are calling from the kitchen

would I like
   strawberry jam on my toast

strawberry jam?

   I think
I forgot we had some

in the refrigerator
   between the peanut-butter

   the almost empty jar
of gloopy marmalade

I shout back yes

I will have jam on my toast
   why not

   I feel healthy
I am growing a smile

there’s you and there’s life
and it’s only Monday

   you know

She was fascinated,
hooked as if a fish out of water.
Whenever death
was splurged across the television
she’d sit upright,
the sofa would creak,
her eyes gorging all
like globs of kitchen roll.
Two per second.
She thought she’d solve them,
bust the case wide open
or some other cliché.
Reams of unresolved stories,
of women splayed
at American roadsides
with a missing molar
or red rings around the wrist.
There had to be an answer, she’d say.
Everything has answers
because everyone asks questions.
A human doesn’t go missing,
someone always sees, apparently.
She’d talk about dying
as if she welcomed it,
as if it was a real person
with bones and a voice.
One day she sliced her finger
and just let it bleed,
the thin line then the bloom
of crimson that wept
into the sink.
Two per second she’d remind me.
I scrambled in the drawer
for a plaster.

morning barney
next door
muffled eff-yous
fuzz through the walls
in the mirror
my eyes awash
with scrawny red streams
my head like a sack
of gravel

that night
we talk about London
I think of the hug I will give
the clumsiness
coursing through me
like treacle
my lungs congested
with strange capital air

the subject changes
your girlfriend
guts a packet
of salt and vinegar
and we laugh
between sips of my Coke
and your drink
a sickly yellow

I let the conversation
drizzle over me
in a shower of syllables
I know my words
are jumbled
splattered slipshod
as a toddler’s painting
but I toss them in
see if they gleam

I.

Pringles are eaten
as gifts are slowly unclothed
might be pairs of socks

----------

II.

The Queen makes her speech
pigs in blankets passed around
crackers house trinkets

----------

III.

Adverts for sales
folks queue up hours before
for a new TV

I told you not to forget
but you did,
a letter resigned in a drawer,
a story left to grow dust
and words to vaporise
like they were never written
and meant one thing.

I liked our kaleidoscope moments,
candy-colours in triangles and circles,
melting stained glass
but you broke it,
dropped it on the floor or something
and we couldn't fix it,
those reds and greens and golds
a sprinkled memory
at the back of our brains.

So we used a spinning top
and watched it ****
upon the table,
round and round
but it slowed,
staggering
like a man intoxicated
and it fell from the wooziness,
too sick to go on.

So we played chess
even though I am mediocre at it
and I was white,
you were black,
the little kings, queens, bishops
forced forwards by our fingers
until they didn't want to play anymore,
back in the box please,
and you won, of course,
you won every game with ease.

Said we'd play again sometime
but you didn't remember
and I bought a new kaleidoscope too,
just for us to use
but you forgot didn't you,
it happened again.

Katie sleeps alone
   her clothes are a Dolly-mixture
   riot of colour
on the bedroom floor
   pictures from years past
   splashed slipshod
on the walls  
   a medley of static flashes
   there’s half a glass
of a cloudy liquid nearby
   and her glasses
   decked in fingerprints
reflect morning light


Katie rolls over
   with eyes barely open
   as her phone spews out
a generic pop song
   and she groans
   and her hair
is a cream detonation
   on the pillow
   her mother is calling
Katie is running
   or rather snoozing late
   this is how it is she thinks
this is what I have become

find your hand in the mist
chasing shadows bleeding into night

strawberry juice coating the throat
kisses are like a sunrise

if this is drunk then let me keep drinking
the sight of you

the bubbles rising to the surface
like some newly-discovered champagne

Two people are kissing
on the bus, their lips
entwined like one knot
of candyfloss. Nobody
else notices this, or does
but doesn’t care, eyes
peering gloomily out
the windows at the
belly of fog across
empty fields. I wonder
how long these two
have lasted, how long
they have brushed
tongues and laced
fingers with each other.
Barely eighteen, adolescence
prickling their skins
like heat rash, the fear
of young adulthood
a neon light down
a dark alleyway. I wonder
if they will last. I doubt it,
but there is no way of telling.
I ought to say it’s fleeting,
that in half a decade
you might not know
each other, two people
together once in some way
but now not, or with others
who have yet to enter the frame.
But it would be rude
to interrupt. They kiss,
I sit.

and your     electricity
will propel   through me
   jolt me     ALIVE
make my skin   tingle
                                    this and your fingers
twirling until midnight
   chilly   trail   along   my   back
bones  I own
     played as a     silver harp

kiss me (pink)
and I’ll   sip   your smell
   like white wine
slip it under
my sleeve
   breathe easy
if you have     stained     me
with a [quick] shock of lipstick
watermelon juice
as a burn on my     neck

kiss me (red)
and my veins will i g n i t e
     a sunrise
between-our-toes
cauldrons for mouths
   burbling bits     of us
fat   happy   glistening   bubbles
wrench me
from the river   you know how
    rinse me in lilacs

kiss me (black)
and I’ll   crackle
spl int er as glass
be swept            along in neither here
               or there
lose my   taste   to the wind
fill milk-bottles to the     brim
   with inane bOO-hOOs
those bluespinksreds in-betweens
     **** me gently
(with a smile)

your kiss
is my snowflake

no two the same
and yet to fall

like a word nobody utters
in case they say it wrong

the others are like kites
tiny blue specks

blending in with the clouds
or a car in the fast lane

watching countryside
***** by in an avocado slush

there’s a lexicon
to be discovered

while fragile words
stain friends like coffee

if they’re not careful
or allow themselves

to be cracked
as a lightbulb on the floor

There’s a clumsiness
to the way I unbutton my shirt,
hoist it over my head
and let it snuffle to the floor.

I stand there, *******
and unkempt armpit hair on display
but you’ve already almost
totally disrobed,

the light from outside
licking your spine,
dribbling down a leg
like melted sunflower petals.

We catch each other’s eyes,
except you don’t catch eyes,
you see the other person
looking at you
and you know what’s next,

the standing ****,
dry skin and bellybuttons
viewed only by a fortunate few,
a bunch of names
like grapes squashed
into bed sheets
we won’t touch again.

I think this is supposed to be sexier,
my underwear flinging off,
boxer shorts champagne cork
towards the window,
your bra sunny side up
by the foot of the door.

Rather I watch you
peer at the skin I’m in
waiting for a shrill buzzer sound,
a number out of ten
and a spatter of applause
from a conjured-up crowd.

I think you look glorious.
I go to say this but my brain feels
as though it’s been whisked.
You walk over, slink your hands
towards my face,
put an icicle finger to my lips.
I’ve no idea what I’m doing
but you’ll show me the way.

think I know you
            knew you
before blue jumpers
football with tennis *****
weeping knees and benches
and reeling off hymns
            now look
at them singing the songs
of some not-quite-teen
mute squares of a life
apparently pristine
likes arriving like flies
            before
it was packed lunches
a place named Azkaban
afternoon kwik cricket
colourless pix
on Bebo
            now it's
a slurry of selfies
head-tilt lips-out
meme media excess
digital mausoleum
you've made your home
            so choose
I'll leave you to it
beeline for the Apple store
record what you can't get back
speak up **** your planet
or run

Two years,
but will we make it to three?
   Pimple a stipple of red paint
   on my chin,
mouth scarred pink with the last deposits
of lipstick.
   I am making an effort
   for myself, then himself.
He has booked it all,
a mildly impressive stat. A restaurant
   where a bottle of ooh-la-la French wine,
   sweating its chill, costs both arm and leg,
where meals take up a sixteenth
of the plate, christened with a garden leaf.
   I do not speak of my concerns.
   His face is awash with tiredness,
his eyes somehow a darker sea-blue
than our first meeting, several iPhones ago.
   Our speech is exhalation brief,
   each syllable like a book
falling in an empty library,
everything written, little said.
   The wine dyes my inner cheeks,
   but the food: Greek salad, crescent moon tomatoes,
vinyl cucumbers, feta cheese slabs
and tang of onion burning back of the mouth.
   His, souvlaki, fish cadaver on the side,
   wine also white, extortionate, though I haven’t paid.
I look at him, assuming this is our last meal.
If I tell the sea, will she wash it away?
   How lovely he is. Really, I mean it.
   He must believe we are forever and ever.
I count the mouthfuls, the tiles on the floor.
His chair squeals when he leaves for the loo.

Si   lent
             fig   ures
                           un   der   a   du   vet
I do not know them
                            the pic   ture is not clear e   nough
                            I simp   ly can't
i  ma   gine   the   breath
              on a   no   ther one’s skin
                             crack   le be   tween   fin   gers
and so - called sparks
                             but I would dis   cover
                             the wi   res that con   nect us
und   er   stand our net   work
              like a be   guil   ing lab   y   rinth
                             quick blink - touch   es
qui   et   ly
                            crad   le your name
                            as if it were
a snow   flake

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

I don’t know who he is, OK? I never really know. What I do know: Italian. Blaze of beard. Here on business, apparently. Lard-y skin. A filling, upper-left. An anchor on the ribcage, monochrome. What I do is I let them talk, pretend to absorb. I hear ‘married’, ‘two kids’. He plays squash. I giggle, then accordion-yawn.    
Anyway, the deed is over quickly. I do not ******, as if that’s a shock. He grunts as though chopping wood, a digit of sweat slipping down a ******. My lipstick a little smudged but not OTT. I leave him in the casino where we first met, mouth ajar.  
I wake at eight, pins and needles submerging my legs. I shower, the water a blizzard of ice, scrub my name backwards in condensation, silver burn.  
Now I’m drinking a coffee from a Styrofoam cup. The view, Lake of Lugano. Another man. I hold his eye. I almost choke on the sight across the street. Followed me from Frankfurt to Cannes and back again. There’s a slice of a smile on his face. I know he likes the footwear I’ve chosen, ******-skewered piercing obvious through my shirt. I assume he’s ******* me, but not really, you know what I mean. Black jacket, gush of stubble. I taste his name on my tongue already - acidic, delicious. He knows what I did last night. I know what he did last night. So, naturally, we know what we’ll be doing tonight. At least I’ve gone bra-free. It only slows things down otherwise, if you ask me.
A bell moans out from somewhere. I know how it feels, each tone in time with my steps, my feet moaning from these cheap strapless heels. A Swiss flag on a window, typewriter-chatter of the language hopping out from a café. The lake almost curdles at the very thought of me, surely, slowly, embracing my next mistake.

The room
in a state of disintegration,
sense of an ending,
names, first and last,
pouring from our mouths
for, perhaps, the final time.

Tears like transparent worms
stuttering down cheeks,
a merry-go-round of hugs,
black jumper to black jumper,
white shirts plagued with marker-pen,
scribbles of our teenage selves.

Summer before change,
locations that will develop
into a second home, new faces
blooming into existence
as if undiscovered flowers, bedroom walls
riddled with our personalities.

There are those who cannot wait
to depart; maybe they already have,
the years crushed to dust
in the silence between goodbyes.
I stand, useless as a faulty lamppost,
the horizon an onslaught of fog.

A lot of people seem to be angry.
   I don’t know why they seem angry.
Perhaps they are threatened by something.
   By me.
I am not threatening however.
   I am myself.
I am only saying what needs to be said.
   Things they have not said enough.

It is all rather strange to me.
   There are people following me.
They are young and chanting a lot.
   Some are chanting my name.
They never used to know my name.
   Now I walk in new lands.
I am shaking hands and smiling.
   These strangers are happy to meet me.
They say I am doing good things.

I think on the television others are not happy.
   I do not care much for this.
I am told they are heavy on criticism.
   They think I am intimidating.
I am only passionate.
   This is what I am good at.
I don’t know why they don’t care much.
   Maybe it is because I am young.
They will have their silly reasons.
   I told them our house was on fire.
I hope they heard that.

I carry my sign.
   Skolstrejk för klimatet.
Kids are joining me and parents too.
   Bangladesh, Nigeria, San Marino.
There are too many to mention here.
   It is promising to see.
I am only a girl with a sign.
  I wear my blue hoodie and talk.
I talk when it is necessary.
  These are necessary times.

Winter,
and with winter comes a girl.
She greets the weather as a friend
she has not seen since last Christmas,
grins as the snow
scrunches and squeaks
as green Wellington boots
on a wooden floor.
Two men walk past her,
reeking of yesterday’s brandy.
One has sloshed a lot
down his front,
a dark claret patch
like a seeping **** on his chest.
Someone is playing an instrument,
a saxophone,
and the sound
sprints fluidly along the streets
into taxi-cabs and terracotta
coffee-shop windows.
She smiles again.
One dustbin’s been KO’d,
trash trips out
in a puddle of colours
like unwanted confectionary.
A teenage couple are kissing,
their heads a swaying metronome
and the boy grips a Starbucks cup
with one limp hand as if to say
here you have it.
Evening gushes over her
like a rush of bad acne
but she loves the sun
as it pecks the cheeks of buildings
and the jingle from her phone
which reminds her,
the movie starts at eight.

What you should know
is that I’ve never done parties,
except that wasn’t quite a party,
more an excuse to liquor up
in the first week back,
tepid attempts to recall the faces
who swam past a year before
like scarecrows from a car, expressionless
in a chaos of fields.

Told this was integration
but anywhere else would’ve done,
mumbles like distant storms
behind closed doors,
footsteps a high echoed chime up the stairs.

The room, a tumble-dryer of conversation.
A brown drink, probably ***, or coke, or vinegar,
somehow navigated to my hand.
A pilfered traffic cone in the corner,
playing cards slapdash on the coffee table,
forgotten hearts, fading diamonds.

Somebody spoke, a game began.
Spilling secrets, unwillingly or too drunk
to care otherwise,
each hopscotch-like laughter another
thorn of headache.
I zoned out as if watching the shopping channels,
palms peppered with the braille
of my nails mining into my hands.

The spreadsheet of names scrolled down,
guys with over-gelled hair, ******* shirts
then me, trickling out my half-hearted truth,
quickly dismissed, knocked to the curb,
my social status cemented once again.
Then you, the last to speak
in this merry-go-round
clouted me awake as though coma free.

o Lychee-pink fingernails, slushie-blue eyes.
o Seashell necklace, skin several sunbathes down.
o Hush of a French accent, denim jeans punctured with holes.

The images, the speech came quick
as if behind the glass of a bullet train.
I tried to capture them like a cat
hopping up for dragonflies,
but these were more like snowflakes
perishing on my tongue.

If my mind hadn’t been frazzled
with the intricacies of anxiety
I would have uttered my name,
snaffled yours, an early birthday gift,
but no.

The evening capsized, us students dispersed
like birds barked at by a dog,
the clock’s downcast dialogue
of time gone, opportunities missed.

I stayed awake with the shape of your face
as though viewed through cellophane.
You mattered somehow, electrocution
right into my brain, your secret swallowed
by the ghosts of the night.
Hell, I thought, resting with my vivid
fabrications until the next day, the next year.

sun forms lemon stockings
     on legs
          bent like anglepoise lamps
     turn the page
          sparkling water
how do they make it sparkle
your earrings sparkle
     two in each ear
tiny frosted spheres
          empty liquorice heels
dead on the ground
     flaking purple toenails
     a relative’s name
in fancy font above an ankle
          you say
what are you looking at
     you know the answer
I feel it in my cheeks

sun begins
bow to sleep

sets sky
in vermilion haze

present me
with palmful

of touch     touch
pacifies palm

could be lined
with sunshine

happy lemonade
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