Were I with you every day
I would rest in your arms
Stare up, a moonstruck hare
At a slow eclipse of hours

Were I with you every day
Soft luxury of tender touch
Prevaricate in velvet stillness
Under long clouds, long sighs

Were I with you every day
Wrapped in hibernating warmth
A nacreous glow illuminates
Outside’s lunar seas

But I am not and so
Busily I start to stitch
The quilt of my life fast to yours
Decorate this nest with coloured geegaws
Built, not just experienced
This place is ours, this place endures

we sat, you and I
not waiting but being  
like the hawk that circled above
and invisible fishes below
after the rain, in the wet
watching the empty shore.

we saw mountains
thick with green pelts of
bamboo grove and conifer;
a park on the shore
neat and clean as
a public information map;
boats and ripples
held in static snowglobe motion.

even the air was less heavy
less breathed
condensing in the mountain cool
and rolling down to us
a sundae for our souls.

I saw it in your face,
you were home,
there was nowhere more

sunrise skies, blue and hard as enamel,
held in place with power cable nets
pressing down like separation
holding in place my mood
as a fish frozen hard in ice

mornings with no kisses are brittle and sharp
with no hugs are cold and mineral
with no words are harsh and cutting
with no you are winter crystalised

as I walk where we walked
the imprint of your gloved hand
develops from memory like a photograph
my feet find the cadence of your footsteps
and I am warmed by togetherness like a stove

the taste of Valentines sweet on my lips
but not as sweet as your kisses

like this
your imprint in my life
footsteps in the damp sand
fills
with the incoming tide of days

faces

pressed hard against frosted glass
face shapes, indistinct
bleached of expression
distorted by breath condensed

why choose to suffer like that
frozen to the outside of distorting glass
separated by that pane
division you refuse to submit to?

when every smile is unaware
where there are no windows on the soul
who you are a concrete set

I resonate because
on this side too
there is identity, pulse,
that quiet sense of self
pushing harder into the ice
believe some locks
can be unpicked

morning air, soft,
warm and welcome as a lovers touch
summer leaves promise
almost time
almost ready

I travelled far
not counting footsteps
shapeless past not formed
by ranks of hours
yet now days to come
are measured precise
and welcome as
the needle falls

too short now
and too long
stretching home

and footsteps close
to beating hearts
to clasping hands
to sighing breath

together