Two Poets Write

Alice and Avrina, residing in two different parts of the world write poems about the spaces that surround them. Every week, they write on a similar theme, a similar word. That of space. Of crevices, corners, chimneys. The air they breathe and the sky above them. But how different are thoughts and spaces that snake into the words these women in countries far off write? This time they write a poem each about a statue/sculpture. Alice from Chicago and Avrina from Göttingen.

[twopoetswrite]

(Cloud gate/ The Bean-Chicago, U.S.A)

You walk under a cloud

- Alice Yousef

We don't always understand what moves above our heads who gives clouds direction or lining made strictly of silver not gold- Is it cheaper metal?

you can walk under a cloud without thinking of it why now that you are surrounded in shining images of your own steps is it that you think of the skies?

the dead hold no envy, you know it is only reserved for the living

Who told you that you can only be on the other end of a navel only once, young and unable to talk who said you had to be an unborn child?

it is a fact now, that you can walk and be born once out of a vigor without thought or need for notes to remember how to truly stand up

yet why, you wonder, is it this atonement? make a mistake and never correct it because you are sure it will correct itself, sealed and traded like Jack's beans

let me tell you a story: once upon a time, you were born to build let me tell you something else: this story doesn't end happy or sad, you keep changing the adjectives because no one, you say, can predict the end

who wants to predict anyway?

They had told you the world had no navel but you couldn't believe how a round belly cannot have one, didn't this blue ball come from another mother?

don't we have a core center to where we stand a place kissed in times of nightmares dunked in alcohol to recover from a disaster

it is a shot to this body, tequila poured like fire in navels

imagine this trail of obsession to origin: where we walked barefoot in the grass, the navel of this universe

is where the dew brushes the backs of our ankles on a crisp windy day

this is the city of the wind, marked by a silver reflection, hanging from its navel a gate for the clouds to pass under a cloud

you & the cloud are made of one thing: so much water and a little bit of earth

Kapoor had a vision, when you distort an image you create another: maybe more powerful a feeble child breaking from a grandmother's grip  without breaking her arms

this is tenderness then, the way you can curve with others like a double sided bean yet remain awfully straight when you stand up

that is escape, when you break another will for your own, not selfish or foolish for thinking about becoming, finding your own navel

This is what is seen now: skyscrapers to remind you how tall you can stand, a bent bean to remind you that you will age in good time and a hallowed navel in the middle pressing on the potential children you wait to grow like clouds with water and a little bit of earth.

[twopoetswrite]

(Gänseliesel, Göttingen, Germany)

Gänseliesel

- Avrina Joslin

i walked to you that night or morning, to talk about him. how easy it must be now for him to sleep. as easy as fright is to me. as easy as a earworm’s crawl. it’s in the way you see it i told you.

goose girl, are you eleven? or more. have many before me sat as i do, at you, asking. have you been kissed more, your breasts touched more, your geese petted, your basket’s flowers stolen from. goose girl, are you a hundred years old? are you the second daughter, a replica or a copy. will you be like me, when i grow up.

i meet my mother here every day. sitting, the one time she did, cross-legged at you, looking at me, her daughter, her daughters, her husband as if it was enough. there was the sun, the pigeons, us. and it was all enough. to see her every day, would that be enough?

goose girl, are you woman? will they steal you one day like they did me too. when your mother comes asking what should I say. are your lips dry now. what did you tell mine when she asked you.

i waited at you for a man one night. i waited at you for a woman one night. i kissed them both and touched twice to know. i kissed them both but not at you. i kissed them both but not you. i waited at you for you just as i waited at you, for me too.  

my niece’s legs don’t reach your water, you have no flowers the day you meet her. she’s woken from her nap to chase your pigeons and clear skies to fall i pick up? why don’t they live in the same town as you and me or just an hour away. did they make your mother just as they made mine too or hers. dark, broad, vulgar.  

where are the flowers you had last night. did they drink too much at you. did they kiss you, again. will you change again tomorrow. did no one cut your hair. did you put your hand through it when it was there. when it becomes cold what do you do. the birds that sit on you. do you love them too.

they’ve gathered around you their markets and lights. they’ve drained your water, spilled some beer. i have wurst half a metre long and hot wine. i drink to you, sitting in your dry fountain, feeding your spirit as you do mine. your skin as dark as mine, as clean as mine’s always been.

if i ask you if it’s wrong to cheat, will you tell me you do it all week. if i ask you if you want to leave, will you also know it’s with me. will you know i’ll take you to the time i was eleven or seven where you’ll sit on the floor and i’ll undress and unbind to look underneath and you’ll say it’s all well and all healed. the day we become girls we’ll take out your flowers and play he owes me, he owes me not, he awes me…  

goose girl, i’ll come again today. show me my mother – the curls of her hair, her white rabbit teeth, her laughless laugh, her colourless blood. tell her i’ll see her for Christmas when i’ll pull out all her white hairs away. you’ll tell her i love her, in only the words i ask you to say.

[twopoetswrite]

(River Spree, Berlin, Germany)

She Spree

- Avrina Joslin

She flows in parts not breaking but allowing slowly to collect in puddles or ponds and sometimes bays where the silver sail boats come to stay.

She’s come throttling through the wild, against stones and black rock, breaking into tinier and tinier crystals of the pure where intent is not separate from purpose or action.

She branches off from a mother whose blood she gives as she did, to orphans or children, the childless and the carrying, splitting into genealogy, spilling into reservoirs of organic womb.

She sprints in and out of action, rising and falling with bombs, walls, limbs decorating her banks with a chain of assorted events, their leftovers – smell of blood on a menstruating woman sniffed by dogs, forgotten by men.

She falls from cliffs as if her wings were lost to other winged beings who found her fit to fly along: amateur bird stepping off a cliff, falling a straight line to whirpools of undercurrent and swish.

At night she catches light on the mountainous pictures she draws on her skin and moves: a stretching game where your tattoos look like other things when you play with your skin.

She catches light and throws it away, making her darker and lighter under the sun, moon and canopies of trees who write history on her; a chronological accumulation of western wind on eastern heritage, hermitage packed neatly, under whose ribbons are conflicting currents

resting in peace. Her tadpoles, fish and dead debris drown to her floor where a few plants also grow. The dead can cap the alive, her leaves can gather dust but her water will wash it all away. She will sprint, spit, spread and resist.

She will Spree.

[twopoetswrite]

(Iowa City, U.S.A)

By the Iowa river, I sat down

- Alice Yousef

The Iowa river is dark brown, you look and cannot see the bottom on the morning runs, I think to myself:  it will change color take second skin, save face on the surface in motion, the finer details never shape

the bridges cover with enough rust the side of the river I see: a good side, for words, mosquitoes and men with dogs a side set for floatation atop slow-paced water

like rugged wrinkles on a woman's face it doesn't disappear, this gentle wind shame I once told you there are no rivers running in my city

the way London has the Thames the way Jericho smells the Jordan with a forced feature to venture off a whiff of movement and streams

you answered: it doesn't matter I know you will seek water elsewhere source to sea, drop by drop keep moving

but by the Iowa river I stand a charred birthday-card it carries down: screwed, is the only word I can make of what's left I think, it was supposed to be funny but I do not laugh

I'm not laughing much these days. There's an old brick school by the river dates to the year 1934, one between two wars a year without significant body of months blooming, I note the year for no reason

I stroll by mistake on the way to where smoke rises by virtue of old cigarettes half buried in inch long grass lean and green, must I confess that I only tried cigarettes with you? to taste your breath, take in your oxygen without asking for a kiss

by the Iowa river I sat down and cried, did not weep like those who were expelled I walked down the riverbed on my own will by excusing myself for wanting to swim, who else swims under rain?

I sent you a letter by way of the waves your name and address will float on the surface my name, the color of my eyes will slant to the bottom where fish, parasites, old shoes and bodies sleep softly this is the last time I will allow my name to sink this deep for yours to rise.

[twopoetswrite]

(Written between Tokyo, Kyoto - Japan)

Some things you will never truly hear

- Alice Yousef

I. Watch out for distance the line between land and water is cut by a merging of yellow lights must be very well-lit houses, all slanted, like in the movies I think to myself, but I would never guess: what's next?

There's something that arrives with you once you move in a space that is not yours to claim, a place that doesn't extend to the small body you have, one you thought was too ugly for love an extra heartbeat you may not even notice

A warm March, they said, yet it rains on both sides of the train perfectly parallel, parable droplets like those I will leave in major stations, on soft beds, on people's shoulders extra heartbeats  I cannot explain

I close my eyes for a second open them outdoors to brush Sakura from your smile it had fallen unexpectedly, a little earlier than its designated spring a little rounder, flat pink with envy of the earth that holds all of us

II.

There's wind in my lungs, whistling against the bamboo I lightly tap the trees, to make sure I have not made them appear from imagination, like I do when you go missing

I am greeted by a waterfall, a pot of tea too green to see a future at the end of its leafs, uncertainty does not concern you when water runs smooth

yet never bitter. This is how you find yourself with a simple desire to send grace, somewhere or to just  be, one who loses, one who wanders one who for once tries;

rolling the words, like sushi I leave alone the language that lends itself to Arigatou Gozaimasu thank you very much- a return to welcome change

Wash your hands, wash your heart throw a coin at the altar, clap twice then ask to be forgiven of what? Ask anyway there's nothing wrong in asking

because one day you will wake up to the ocean on your shoes, kissing with purple shells, laughing at the uncertainties you held about oceans; stormy no - just deep and calm, like people, but softer.

III.

From my window, the temples tell me how great man has become while I sit, on the floor writing a poem about past lovers, still present just outside of my body

I won't curse them, I don't thank them I just list them, like wishes round an old Oak tree in a shrine understand that habits are formed with days like friendships, like hearts

between the swan and the fable, in Gion I stop developing the innate fear I have breastfed with my mother's milk, I walk the night-streets, trail the Geisha's thousands steps to serve, to please, to shield, tell her she has beautiful eyes

I doubt that she'll even believe me sometimes I jibber when I cannot hold my peace yet here I am - bare from love, from clothes, from a desire to grow, or shrink, or shuffle my legs behind someone else's footsteps

but here I also invite sleep

in my dreams, same as in Kamakura, yellow Koi fish swim the ones closer to the surface of the waters open and close their mouths as if whispering in bubble gulps, the secret to happiness

something I will never really hear but I still understand.

[twopoetswrite]

(Wangerooge, Germany)

Wangerooge

- Avrina Joslin

Beside her face is his, separate from the ocean but made of sea. Hers is of red brick, eroding too soon, too old for her age, two young eyes so dazed. His a beam of light, a prism and other laws of nature.

They rescue stranded starfish who aren't stranded, killing them by mistake to increase the dead on the seabed of broken morsels – crabs, ochre jellyfish. They know the count though they did not

count, two. At night the white of waves turn fluorescent blue. They begin as non-believers, looking for man-made things – lamps, lighthouses, projections, turning into believers who know it's something else.

Phytoplankton that night in their eyes makes the other, mermaids with genitalia, legs of amphibians, hermaphrodites with broken vertebrae, slumped on one another for spine, gluing, slimily balling into one fist of jellyfish (dead or alive).

They stand between sand men marching from west to east, ghosts of slow placation, white dementors not sucking but adding silt to their otherwise sealess lives. Their clothes are drenched even as the western tip stands dying. The tendency of the island is to move easterly. They stand against, they stand no chance. If the wind wants to give, the wind will. If the wind wants to take, the wind will.

Between two ends they walk or pedal, kissing or panting or both or nothing. The tidal currents narrowing and deepening gats, sinks them even more into each other, even mariners know their depth only at start of every month. These dead beat two know nothing, not even that they sink.

They walk on groynes into the sea stopping to look at curbed choked waves in less adamant expression of froth at their feet. The wind cuts their faces, forcing them to look away, sit away, walk away. One on the bank, the other becoming tinier on the groyne. They wait for the night to darken, for the froth to turn blue, history and love repeat. But to go back without this vision twice means you get it only once. This they get, their deaf in love minds.

In dribbling sweat, their incorrectly caliberated thoughts now match rhythm and tempo but sound a bit like torrential rain rather rainbows in light drizzle amidst cast sunlight.

They are breeding dragonflies, ball turrets caught in the chassis of the other, fuming, crashing into one another, falling to the eastern end of the island where rescuers won't come or collect their debris.

Here where they say God created time but he never mentioned haste, they wait in each other, forming straits, gats, groynes, burying crab, star and jellyfish. Not an age of empires but an island of erosion, losing on one end but gaining on the other.

[twopoetswrite]

(Valentine’s Day - Villupuram, India)

When they asked her what it was.

- Avrina Joslin

It wasn’t how he held her, it wasn’t how he didn’t. It wasn’t how they met rarely, it wasn’t how they sometimes just didn’t.

He made a cat noise every time he came in – pretty, pretty, kitty, kitty it went. He carried her, swirled her in the kitchen... In minutes to the counter she was bent.

She liked all this, she swore she did. Even the one time he broke a glass, then a bottle of wine. The other time he tried to break it on her and it wasn’t even that, it wasn’t even then.

He showered in the morning, wiped on her towels. He brushed after that, always with her brush. He burnt toast when she showered and he read. He used all the marmite and it wasn’t even then.

It wasn’t even how he asked her for money And didn’t call her for weeks till he’d spent ‘em. He called her names, the friends said he swore. She knew he was a name-caller, and it wasn’t even then.

***

It was after he’d left in the mornings of the nights he’d had no bed and the towels, the bed sheets, her hair and even the kitchen smelled like him. Even the marmite tasted like him.

It was that.That in a night everything of hers had gone to him. Everything including her very own skin.

[twopoetswrite]

(various cities) 

A portrait of love on Valentine's day

- Alice Yousef

The shadow of a rose over a bucket, dripping

red petals on a subway cart leading into a village, almost empty

the boy who kissed, hands-first my bare shoulder blades

single women's laughter on all red things: signs, no-parking spots, shirts, blood

the teddy bears smiling  at the passerby droopy, soulless eyes

the I-love-Yous, Be Mine promises we cannot keep, yet still manage to make

The Saxophone player with frostbitten fingers, warm music

A rain that falls in Coventry pressing umbrellas together pushing the pigeons apart

the recycled wine, served first overused candles, with good wine reserved for deserving guest

this is a love made for Valentine's, cellophane wrapped served with a smile.

[twopoetswrite]

(Christmas - Cardiff, Wales)

The Graveyard of Christmas Trees

- Thomas Stewart 

It is my job to rescue the Christmas tree. I do it every year.

Push aside black bags of summer clothes, crawl into the side- space full of dust. The box, noosed with brown sello-tape, has been stitched & dumped – returned. The Christmas joy all boxed-up.

It is time for its show. It is all dolled up, embroiled with lights, told to shine, controlled when the children scream. It is brought presents it can never open. It is left alone at night still burning.

*

I am very small sneaking down the dark corridor, going to the tree. It is not real, it will never die. It will not be tossed out, weeping and cracked. The tree will continue in this torment.

Even though I am small and young, I see the ugliness in its beauty. I take the tree away with me.  

*

This is the Graveyard of Christmas Trees. This is where the dead trees rest. This is where the dead trees hang up their hats. This is where they honour their dead.  

Their fleeced branches are empty of tinsel & bells – they have naked heads. We pass a dead red star by the iron gates. My Christmas tree is silent & numb.

The tree and I are barely alive, crouched with invisible weights.

The ugliness of its dead folk is more than its humiliation – it is innocent. I smell its tinsel, hear the bells, I sing a hymn to the trees’ wounds.

*

Plastic leaves shred onto white stone when we leave the graveyard. My tree goes back to its second life, its only other spot. It is slow & glum. It is mourning.

I fetch a present wrapped in yellow paper – a bauble inside. We buy a new one every year. I put it on a branch. You’re not going back in the attic, I say.

[twopoetswrite]

(Christmas in England)

Lux mundi

- Gwyneth Box

An awning of electric stripes is draped across the market place; guttering is garlanded and lampposts blaze with paisley scrolls. Shoppers' footsteps shatter puddled light while drizzle tinsels the air. Stars look down on stars.

[twopoetswrite]

(Christmas - Palestine)

Christmas in a Snow Globe

- Alice Yousef

(to Amal, my late grandmother who was my Christmas)

Put Christmas away, this year our joy is deferred, a little wooden train without a railway He, the Son will be born, yet nothing red can stay birth, beauty, baubles with glitter and lights

our joy is deferred, a little wooden train without a railway the lament in my soul curls like holy, a wreath to a season not dead there's still birth, beauty, baubles laden in glitter and candle-light compact in a snow-globe, a protected scene

the lament in my soul curls like holy, a wreath to a season not dead as I pour the wine, hear the choiring children laugh on the streets, church-bells and shoppers racing the shots to give gifts, be kind

I pour the wine, hear myself laugh and choir along make wonder appear by dim candle-light give gifts, precious of being kind I shake the snow globe away from the eyes

make wonder, devoted by candle-light for He, the Son is born in Bethlehem on a night glorified his people dimming the lights of the houses, yet still chanting Gloria, Gloria - I shake the snow-globe away from the eyes

the snow falls tender on the houses, colder on my heart the wine warms, loosens wonder the town doesn't sleep, celebrating faintly   I leave the candles for harsher nights snow will fall outside the snow-globe to cover what I refuse to let shine out.

[twopoetswrite]

(Christmas - Villupuram, India)

Half-Tree

- Avrina Joslin

She’s removed everything from the lower half making it full above empty below, a half-tree lit and unlit, barren and fruitful, loved and unloved. Took away red balls to litter a makeshift koi pond.

We got her a tiny tree, her own, with bells, drums, glittery Santas shedding glitter on her face the size of my palm. She carried it by its tip, flung it into the makeshift koi pond.

She found a way to sit inside the half-tree. Won’t come out. She wanted to be a bauble, her mother says.

***

We’re two families trying to be one, gathering after dark to talk about the one who lost her temper, the one who wanted to come, the one who couldn’t give a damn and the one who bought too many gifts. Spendthrift.

Under the half-tree split in half, we pray what Christ will snigger at. Words of mouth, half-hearted, fully unlit.

***

Months before Christmas for what reason I cannot remember he played me a song and left a few weeks later. Since then, every Christmas eve I listen to the Pogues singing A fairytale of New York when for a second I place him wrapped in tinsel under the tree. Then, put him away.

Very half-tree, very halfly.

***

We’re one family trying to be one, all of us but my mother, having given up.

We make plans of leaving when in truth it will be fleeing.

She who made this half-tree doesn’t know she belongs to a broken family.

***

Half-tree Half-family Half-me

If this year we learn to be

I’ll light up all the tree.

***

It’s his Christmas custom I’ve heard, to jump into a freezing sea where I too jump all from memory.

Very half-tree, very halfly.

***

[twopoetswrite]

(For Alice, from Villupuram, India)

A Birthday Poem

- Avrina Joslin

I remember the door-frame of the house in which she lived where on many nights I too lived, near her bed, wrapped by her and spoken to of novels, bedside prayers, men, unruly friendships, love, war in Palestine and peace for everyone.

I remember the tiny room made spaceless by me spacious by her. Where the bathroom door wouldn’t lock and she’d be still asleep or alive to read or speak negating the morning noises I made to ask and give like every other hour of the day.

I remember the day I waited at New Street for a train and thought I’d read a poem which was hers, which was her. One became two, then many. I came back to ask how. How was it she wrote? She who touched flowers to breathe out day, she who let remorse only briefly stay,

she who bellowed in the dark to icons of belief and prayer tucked under her pillow but woke up resolved with fiery spirit ready. Ready to begin another day, any day. How was it in such brief intervals of sorrow and solitude she wrote?

I remember her poem of a window shattered in childhood of war and I sat so close to my knee that her words groped my body with panic just by the memory.

I remember the day she left to Edinburgh and I accosted her room alone but strange things took familiar shape but I still cried as I packed to leave without her waving to me.

I remember the night she left a class crying to bump into me where I saw my own fear in the crystal clear of her tears running to heaving words of agony about writing and poetry.

I remember the day I last saw her when she ran out to see us and my mother kept saying she had a beautiful voice. When we hugged to walk away, my mother and I didn’t for a long time stop talking about her.

I remember the day I first saw her but didn’t I remember today when I didn’t see her but did.

[twopoetswrite]

(Kitchen - Palestine)

Hot Pepper Steak in White Sauce

- Alice Yousef

[Preparation time: 15 minutes]

It takes common knowledge and a little bit of salt enough to wash the pieces of steak out of their blood, clean the remaining life for frying

fifteen minutes to slice and dice the vegetables wash, again with salt - all components scientific names or plain, hygiene is learnt

with the carving of a soap bar, or the sizzle of oil this is why salt is relevant to my habits clean away sins of Gomorrah and this flesh before

pillars of salt, coated in lands of honey. there, I learnt to clean but never managed the proper skills I needed to survive

but I know that too much of something is equivalent to its loss, but hunger is primal

over the counter I wash away what's left rinse my hand before the sink, washed with lime in this box I cut, wash, talk to myself-

repeat- the rain outside washes the leaves, greener softer for the seasonal change. when you walk it rains on your head, the little beads curl downward to your warm chest

[Cooking: 10 minutes]

light up the hob but be careful with fire, quick to the burning of fingertips, tops of trees, whole houses this kitchen is made of the best wood, heavy

to withstand a yearly change in the way laughter centers around the mistletoe-decorated Christmas cake sinking with rum and fruits dried up to your taste-buds

cupboards contain the times you cough and stare outside the window, on cloudy days this same street withstands like cupboards the number of walkers, the same dogs, the old silver cars parading it daily

when the fire is carefully placed under you, sizzle gentle the face of this flesh and wine together in commemoration of failure to provide anything other than stir, fry, bake without heat

without heat, there would be no start, without this heat, a kitchen remains a place of gathering to talk, to wander, to store old mugs from past lovers, to learn

at adequate speed pour the cream onto the components of your meal, let simmer, like desire your faith - perfect mixture let rest the other things you learn by watching

I have watched you burn bread and butter make of the little ingredients a universe, a house, a stable those times you talked while I was absent mindedly peeling peas

I have always been better with greenery-

[Serve: Hot]

never eat alone, this culture started around tables a culture that makes us fat with extra sputtered bits but serves us as we are, decorated to solitude

because only loners, with faulty weirdness would rather eat piled up with their lonesomeness as if one breath is worse than heavy conversation

if things are lighter on your stomach, never deprive yourself of their taste use the tools you keep piling in the drawers

knives for answers, forks to curl up pasta you make for your best friend after a long drive home or take meat to share with others who open

enough parts of themselves and hug you behind the stove, while you are hunched picking out warm meat for the servings

make sure that when you serve in a tighter space to leave way for the embellishments, with greens with coloring and napkins, you are no less when you dine, like this

look at me, after finishing these meals: I always set my tables with two plates: one for myself another for those who might pass by me later.

[twopoetswrite]

Kitchen - Villupuram, Tamil Nadu, India

The Body Poem

- Avrina Joslin

Two weeks into my sister’s pregnancy, my mother moved the kitchen from near the dining hall to the back of the house which we didn’t call anything, didn’t have a name for, till then.

The previous kitchen – the one with the fancy shelves, an electric chimney, the sensible drawers, now holds a kettle which I use to make tea.

We used gas cylinders and pressure cookers; two things I’d never come to believe in, having heard of many accidents where the narrators used the words all is lost. Even if it was just by ten feet, the distance helped me

more than it did my sister who still smelled the fish curry, mutton kurma and everything else she usually ate turned sour; cooking, at the same time gathering the nothing to little she’d eaten from the surface of her stomach to be wretched like time taken away. I never knew why they called it morning sickness when she had it all day.  

These were the words my mother used to talk about the change – her body won’t take. The smell. All this cumin, pepper, tamarind, roasting. The smell, the taste of smell – as if talking about her own self twenty nine years ago.

A few weeks later, my mother and I stood in our new kitchen drinking a daily ritual of a glass of milk before bed, when I told her that loss of appetite frightened me more than it should.

Where all the tastes you’ve ever known all your life, the mainframe of your memories, the smell of taste, the taste of smell, little things you didn’t know about you but kept preserved in coded language you were meant to take down to your grave with your body

now changed and simply taken away.  

[twopoetswrite]

your poems are beautiful!!

Thank you :D We’re glad you liked them.

[twopoetswrite]

(Bedroom - London, England)

Making the Bed

- Cathy Galvin

(For Avrina, Alice and Auerbach)

Pull this sheet tight across eleven thousand nights stripped to a brushed line, sinking to the tip   where in sleep we disappear. A thread weaving,

unseen and infinitesimal. This bed – lovers, children held along the flare of dream. Think I am here but with no-one to witness where

we drift to the part of the day we don’t remember; caught in a weft of atoms dusting beneath bed and pillow, this clay where I lay my head -

dead behind closed eyes. Awake in the light, where does the smell of smoke in my hair come from? This heat between my legs

and all that happened left the memory of what we didn’t say because no-one ever does. This closing from a place deeper

than default position. More laid back than alert. My lips on yours. Then not. Wakes all that was always there. Fingers

find everything within the skin of mind and sleep. Reaching beyond this we have known; . shakes, makes us fine as we stretch

to reach the furthest place. Macdara seals the small space where purr whites and eons groan. All burning; life flowing to the flood, not uber-stood. Windows

not our own shared in moonlight. Our triumph not what we build but what we deconstruct. Knowledge kneels to the floor of the wood. See

what remains. All we have been, all we will be is with us now. Hegemony tasted lemon on a tongue. I wonder what it is to be. Ask God to show me

but don’t listen to his answer and lift the blind to thunder. Flying in. Wing beat. Gifts given. Man’s dark imagining. Hardcastle shapes in haunted bogs -

nerve on bone. Seattle child feeding crow a crab claw, black bead, ribbon, doll’s head, beer-coloured glass. Fingering the carapace.

Before all could be dictated and weighted, opened a window letting day in and the night not going, bent to tie you back to the bed.

Sang songs only the wind could hear as you sank beneath raptured grass. The waking signal. The alarum of fate. Back to that millstone place

where rocking man and child against my breast - pulling the heat of my love against the thread of this bed,  I close the cry. I let go.