It’s winter
and the radiators make for hot summer bedrooms,
fake heat for a false season,
high humid air in the canopy,
a western, British, Tunisian bazaar.

But outside the window frame into
the rooftop mouth
of chimney teeth and foggy breath,
a pair of speckled starlings,
with deep coffee eyes and rings
of white for plumage decoration,
nest in the wound of this building.

Surely if they migrate,
to warmer climates, past
the Spanish-African gate, they’d
be able to bask in the dawn desert
sun that’ll drift slowly overhead,
raise their young their instead.
I’d like to migrate too,
leave this town for
somewhere new.

Last night I danced like my dad
with a girl who resembled a dictionary definition
I read not long back-
charming.

Graceful eyes that could
stop traffic with a blink,
and engaging lips that
would smile to sooth the pain of
the midday, gotta-get-back-home-now,
commuters whom step
on pedals with haste.

I lied. My dad can’t dance, so last
night I made a fool of myself
in front of a girl who resembled
a dictionary definition I read not
long back.

Children are walking in flour again,
though these grains are the symptoms
and the symptom is pain.
Resting upon donated metal table,
this child is lifeless with only a label
around his ankle for identification.
Part time doctors and full time others
walk and pace and cry and panic around the mother,
lifeless, with a document for identification.

This is malaria.
This is infant death.
This is an epidemic of hysteria.

I did not kiss anybody last night,
yet my body-
from the lips down-
thinks I did.

Clad in a cotton armour,
like a pitch again tent
in a miserable northern monsoon;
the chest is protected from the disappointment,
the ribs are protected from the disappointment,
as for the heart, that’s the one that gets drenched
in drops of distress-
for it is the one ***** that gets played
by the hand of the female chess player;
knowing and knowledgeable, out to get
your king for only profitable stings
and club-night-pictures-check-the-website-for-more-details,
kisses.

And we carried that mattress
as if it was coffin;
high above our heads
so the stench of cat ****
would travel down to another
Sunday-night northern family,
probably watching some ****.

Don't think there's a lot of this
going on regularly,
but when your cat has bladder problems
it's best to get on with it.

Which do you prefer, Haunted Girl-
the city street sidewalk churned
up by heel and brogue
or,
the sweet-talk waves of home?

Settle in the sand while fingers
meld and touch the palms of hands,
let the hour glass beach pass
time between our toes,
have an appetite for shallow
dives amongst wave-tip whites;
whipped up by swell’s whisk,
stare until we sing for the dead men,
fire flares of affection in the form of kisses!
use a tool to sketch our future floor plan,
comment upon the Moroccan oil hair tan,
watch that man trace the coast of France upon his wife’s thigh;
hear her cry as he reaches Cherbourg,
talk of Vienna flagship stores:
forerunner fashion you make look lace,
mention the trees and the shipwrecks,
past relationship breakups and upcoming commitments,
describe, in detail, what you hope to happen
and what happens to that hope.

Fly back home.