Category: Love

a day will come when
woken by the xylophone
of sunthroughblinds
you’ll realise

that the beach was not the place
where horses tore the sand
to ribbon

that the scent of her has lifted
from the last of the sheets
that she isn’t coming back
and that you don’t want her to

that it hasn’t rained
but the birds are pretending that it has
so they can sing

isn’t this how the best of it should be?
or the worst?
taking the body to the point at which
it almost breaks and then returning
having had your faith restored
in the miraculous fragility
of the self
the morning we almost ended
it was your sobbing brought me back
after the endless smashing of glass
we talked ourselves together
and   the next day   still wearing the mark of your hand
on my chest as you slammed me to the bed   I found I was struggling
to swallow    every mouthful
was a labour   I became aware
of the mechanics of my own body
could feel parts of myself that would
usually go unnoticed
after your hand had slammed into my chest
I learnt the pain in possessing
capacities that are never
quite fulfilled   almost being broken
almost leaving but deciding
to tough it out
until it broke

I listen to us saying goodbye
without taking off my coat.
Your voice breaks.

No need to say it again and again.
I come home and hunt for brown paper, scissors, glue,
if i work fast nothing will be lost.

Not the way you held my face
perhaps turning it to the light,
a precious stone you had to value.

Not the weight of your hands
upon me
their restraint natural as gravity.

The package will be sealed
so light can’t touch it,
safe on the dressing table in the bedroom.

Then we will have said goodbye
and I will have said, look,
it is not destroyed.

If you don’t believe me
I will post it to you.

I will use lists as my defence,
each item a stone in the barricade
keeping you in your place.

The easiest comes first –
capital cities, Shakespeare’s heroines,
names beginning with E.

You hover over me
waiting until I relax or forget,
fingers drumming on my chest.

I’m running out of categories:
dog breeds, prime ministers,
lovers who left me, lovers I left,

authors with unusual names,
English counties, types of cheese.
Nothing helps.

You’re waiting for me
in the contents of rock pools,
red hair mingling with anemone’s tendrils.

 

I though it was a withered leaf
rising in the wind
Then on my hand
a butterfly

It will last no longer
than a leaf
that must fall
this autumn

(And I no longer
than a butterfly
in our love’s ebb
and flow)

But it flutters
and strokes my hand
on which it still moves
and does not know it