Funny thing is, I haven’t had the inspiration to immortalise him by writing him into poetry. It’s probably best he remains a distant memory. But this? Ah, what an apt quote for writers
i dreamt of you last night
i kissed your forehead with all the reverence of a novitiate
despite the days and days your name burned a hole in my throat -
an invocation that you would let me touch you again
do you want to be loved
behind double hung windows
grey-washed with rain,
where tail lights and high beams
dissolve in twin rivers
of red and white bokeh
from steam made by damp clothes on our loft radiator?
later, we’ll laugh like accomplices over
pale green konacha
as we gently bump ankles
sakura petals fall
freed from our insteps
at the 2-seater sushi bar
in the Japanese grocer's
(bend your neck closer)
would you rather be loved
in down comforter autumn
mornings before i head into clinic?
from the limestone-tiled bathroom
i remind you to
put out the recycling
before you get
lost in your writing
unsure that you heard me
as delta waves claim you
enfolded in cotton imported from Egypt
submerged in my scent
300 000 years spent perfecting
do you want to be loved
in mountain lake stillness at sunset?
my breasts limned in rose gold
swaying above the
sharp jut of your hips
on the sofa bed
where you slept as a guest
in the last house i rented
before we both traded the pyramids
and their dust-filled
canopic jars
for stacked mismatched coffee cups
signed copies of Vonnegut
paint brushes in honey pots
and a diacritic-keyed Remington
inexplicably found at our town’s farmers’ market
that week when the vees of wild geese pointed northward
and the sun dogs coursed forward
if none of the above
will you then teach me how you want to be loved
so you also perceive the
synonym of miracle is us?
damn, done it again -
fell victim to my ego
misconstrued your cues when
imagining that we’d go
further than politeness
further than acquaintance
was wrong to feel the rightness
forgot i was high-maintenance
let’s both laugh at the punchline
the sting will feel less cruel
i’ll be over it by lunchtime
though i’m sixteen times a fool
the meteor and the moon
he moves with a kinetic grace
sharp, like the stubble that can’t quite hide
that dimples abide in his thin cheeks
he speaks at rapid-fire pace
glance narrowed at the ceiling screens
off-hand he comments that he needs a haircut
- then hurtles on at speed
on course till gravity intervenes
with light-swift stealth he guides her hand
recognition flares beneath his warmth
he touches with gentle surety
obliterating what others’ touch had formed
transfigured -
inexorably in orbit
he leaves her
having taught her how time appears to a meteor
Tell us about yourself
i want to tell them
i am a river
heedless of time's constraint
incising bedrock
and uplifting mountains
oblivious to the
bullet pointed
in the same direction
(secretly
i am also a dragon
crouched in her riverbed
curled atop pyrite and polished stones,
surrounded by the beloved
white
burnished
bones of small animals
i can be glimpsed on lazy
placid days
the glinting gold answer
on the grey-green water and
if you rested beside me
you would learn
my heart is a swallow
beating bronze-backed wings to make its way to you)
Talons uncurl,
the rhythms of birdsong
and rivers already forsaken by fingers in practiced position
tip-tapping out my legal name.
My once-beloved,
I didn't understand what you built, mistaking the sound of a bolt sliding past its strikeplate as safekeeping. I lift my ear from its surface, now that I've forgotten your fading footfall.
I will not leave as you did - across the room I lift the sash and leap onto the new grass. I run towards the beckoning cherry trees, the gibbous moon's light filtering pink and silver through the blossoms.
I feel younger than I am, kinder somehow, as if I'll soon be the woman you never touched.
His head turns, ivory throat bared
Like a fawn who has known love, but not its betrayal.
From my hiding place, my heart bleats,
"Flee now!" - before the wind scents the air with the life that seeps from the brambles' scratch and invisibly flecks the wild plum leaves.
Look for me - a tremble in the ultraviolet evening -
I will teach you how to erase each trace to confound what hunts us.