If we leave the litter behind,
and run until our legs become a burden and our heads start to swell and come loose like a white-cloth-Arabian-silk turban,
we can make it home before 5.

Past the market that only makes sense in the sun,
along the terraces slipping from their foundations,
skip on-top of walls before falling back into our run
behind the street of seared spice smells, conjured up by different nations.

We’ve left the litter behind.

We’d run further than these cities and their boundaries,
take transport to the tops of heavenly high hills,
cause havoc amongst the machinery of the foundries
and make it home for five if we run through those mills.

We’ve left the litter behind.

Holding hands we’ll remember the brush of the grass on our thighs,
farmer’s fields and the dark brown cut-throughs we took,
our pockets full of receipts and chewing gum supplies
and the look of your pale blue eyes amongst your fresh air haircut.

I hope the litter don’t mind.

She said she liked her coffee cold and dark
like the seas separating her bed and Denmark:

harsh and bitter and brown in the largest
cup we own, so when drinking it
your nose would drown
into an abyss of cheap-coffee-granule-
buy-one-get-one-free ****;

and delivered with it upon the stolen tray,
taken from that shop's Kitchen Must Haves display,
was a plate with two triangles of lightly toasted
toast laid out like the ankles of my late Grandma
(but we weren't together then so, to you,
it just looked like some toast arranged nicely on a plate for us two);

also on the stolen tray from that shop's Kitchen Must Haves display,
was a lovely array of cut of up fruit arranged liked
canapés at every cheap-wedding-buffet:
grapes cut into unfathomable shapes
and slices of kiwi our fingers could never negotiate
and avocado which was there just to cure invisible
weight gain and bad morning breath,
but that's what Google told me so
I can't take it as a guarantee;

and in all of this I was apparently making a fool of myself
because serving you a delicious breakfast
to the sound of Frank Sinatra's Moon River
is not what we discussed, ever- even last night or last week,
in fact, we never talked about this horrendously
unique breakfast.

Happy Anniversary.

No thoughts were thrown around,
let alone conscious decisions bound
in clear evidence and concrete fence-post facts.

She was awake before the frost settled,
and my how her eyes showed the time:
Lengthy red lines pretending to be hands that chimed.

The parkland grasses awaited the
speckled dappled, sunlight shade,
to warm its back in the morning masquerade.

-

Only her body was thrown around,
alone across a car bonnet
in a clear honest, beautiful smudge of fashion and blood.

She would never awake the same again,
and how the nurses soothed her pain
with modern miracle, clear liquid rain, medicine.

The parkland grasses still await the
speckled dappled, sunlight shade,
to warm its back in the morning death march masquerade.

Seats sat around standing tables
void of conversation,
whilst waitresses danced around the homeless
clearing up their desperation with no fuss-
just a cloth wipe across the surface
and a smile to a lonely face;
hard wood walls closed in like
coffin-lid, coffin-hinged cases.

One man alone in the corner held hands with his coffee cup and looked up hoping for familiar faces.

And his finger snapped around the rim,
for this cup of coffee
was his only drink of the day.

And his fingers broke around its handle,
for this cup of coffee
was his wick and leathered-spine candle.

And his fingers melded to the cup,
because this cup of coffee
burnt like coughed-up cigarette ****-stubs.

And I saw spectres sway
in smoke and smog,
hazy gray, secretive fog.

And from the wings
of the checkerboard dance floor,
I stood, saw and adored.

And in fine finesse, finish and form,
you tore me up from the dance floor depth
and whispered odes I shall never forget.

*And what fools we were for not saying yes.
I am sorry.

Service station blues:
another meal beside the news
station stand, and as Tuesday
clicks into Wednesday
I wait in no queue to be served
by no one.

From behind the
confectionery battlement,
decorated with the money-off-percent
products below,
a professional service station stalker
walked closer,
(hopefully to queue in the no one
queue beside, behind, next to and near
me).

We waited together for some
service in the service station queue,
as midnight became morning,
black sky to blue.