It's too cold to sweat
and I'm only cycling for a reason to be tired,
to be warm later on by the radiator fire,
to escape mad house choirs
that sing no song of comfort.

Time away from time
is how the modern stay young,
ski run routes that lead around towns
and back again through the Daily Mail nowhere-snow
that never came nor will ever come.

The rain makes your
veins look like
dark black bra straps
underneath a veil of Topshop sale items-
the bangles were bought elsewhere.
Though it's not their size that worry me,
it's what look lives within your eyes
every time you run a finger up your arm
and back down your arm again;
the charm in your slightly curling autumn leafed smile
curls a little more, turning smooth lakeside skin
into Nile-esturay wrinkles that say save me Tim.

Your red delta cheeks pulsate
in the late afternoon sun coming in on
a diagonal through the newly installed,
doesn't quite close properly, velux window;
you ran through fields only
to end up teary eyed in the kitchen
doorway threshold.

But here, here is where your river 
meets my sea, and turbulent tides
swell up to ferry us away to new coastline
continents:
forget we ever swimmed and swam,
poured sand from our shoes,
held hands and ran, and
forget we held hips on train station steps,
shared lips, left and then hid.

*When you see this you'll know it's an apology

World traveller.
Suit wearer.
Likes The Shawshank Redemption.

He's off to a singles party
somewhere in Doncaster,
it’s Christmas themed
and fancy dress
though it’s
planned for October the 23rd
during Christmas's only rest.

And I know that in Donny
you find love where you can,
and I know he spent hours
revising his master plan fancy dress idea,
but a raw turkey outfit, coloured
like **** semolina once bought
for a Jamie recipe that didn’t quite work,
won’t cut it on the dance floor.

Before I hide myself away
for another night awake,
I'll look up between letterbox gaps in the broken blind
to see the moon shift six degrees southeasterly and think that
in the next seven hours soft eleven light will leak through as
an alarm-clock-call no one asked for.

Before I walk out the door
for another day of yesterday,
I'll look for the wind coming down the road
to ask it if it's bringing me something new on its coattails.
Ikebana dalliance?
A chance blur with her?
Or something old and the same as before?

Creased lines in your cancer bed sheets
and red wine spills still remain
from that time you celebrated
your chemotherapy success.

Drug-blue cocktails were swapped
for beers from cans,
needles for straws and hospital-stock-
comfortable-armchairs for the advertised sofa in your part furnished floor.

Friends came with warm welcomes prepared
in the back of taxis coming from the city,
they came in wide eyed staring,
holding wine bottles remembering your once real wig of hair.