she lent over the bed rail,
wooden and put together by her husband.

without the book she recited the tale,
word perfect and rehearsed and she quickened

with the story, picking up the pace
to the bit where she placed her engagement ring upon my face,

the nose to be precise, and it smelt
of every perfume kiosk in every shopping hall and mall.

the ***** cat said to the owl, in the sequel to the story-
and for another bedtime completely-

'you're the cherry on the tree, un-pick-able
by hand or bird, stay with me please,
I heard marriage doesn't last forever'

Trigger finger 13 is hung
from his shoulders,
though not by hooks found in the butchers book,
but with pride and a sweating brow,
one that can survey the terrain with a quizzical eye,
analysing rustling in bushes only 3 clicks away.

Bible tattoos tattooed below the tribal
ones,
and a 13 on the finger used most
when they charge and come.

New faces look through
glass, forlorn features pressed
against the panes figuring
out where this all came from.

Long gone lineage, here in this
hall, is now a pressed image
collected by a flower picker’s hand,
gloved to protect the rust and frozen
within two sheets of glass far taller than
any Yorkshire lass, here somewhere secret.

Old faces gaze at another frame
filled with someone else’s misery,
it’s pinned to another wall next to the
menu for the restaurant down the hall, first left on the second right.

Short queues form under hanging light bulbs,
it’s this month’s exhibition, the Pharaoh’s jewels,
on display all the way from the splayed deserts
of Egypt, but some given by a museum in Manchester
so it looks like there is more than there is.

Every word's a path,
each sentence a tree
and all attached to a stump of a woman
thin at the base then growing in circles,
until age is defined by height,
her illness by weight.

How can the wood of trench walls
look so lucid, perspex branches
contorting into string in the wind,
knotting air into eddies keeping them
floating right there?

Take my hand to continents only known in the books,
the blue maps on tiny tables sat in stacks
ready for the lesson on Mexico, or thereabouts- third this week because
the timetable is weak, poorly thought through and cobbled
together out of half-dressed evenings in the lounges of
teachers; ones once loved by the master and mistresses, leaders
of the well dressed and caretakers.

Take my feet and walk with them, balancing
on borders separating language and currency,
the gymnast's beam looking out over the forestry,
its taller trees than you and me standing upon toes tipping
down towards the urgent ground, urgently warning to stay
upright and stick around, with her holding your hand.

Afternoons that were once body clock mornings turned to early mornings
which became sweet evening bath time odes to rest;
they’re tests we all win at because the prize is quietness,
primary-school-hands-on-heads quietness,
so still it hurts to sleep because
comfort has wrapped every bone in
ill fitting armour making it, once moved,
difficult to find that point of paralysis once again.

Piano-flat black rooms are lit
by dark midnight suns, the bulbs
burning through, the taps in their place,
chairs thrown under tables away from the morning queue
yet to form for the day.

maps don't exist for
the hardest routes,
instead only for those green diamond
lines playing over manuscript flat paper,
long like flutes extending out over and up
mountain ridges, down across narrow
beaches leading to fisherman rooftops
taking hits from the ocean in front.

We must make our own way lost,
ending up somewhere ill and icy,
dressed up in the frost in nothing but socks, unwashed
from the running, screaming grace from the
windowsills;
it's a place most won't meet, won't want to meet,
but will nevertheless greet with wide open, French patio door
arms.