Three poems
We never feel so distant
we never feel so distant, so islanded,
as when I lie and awake watch you sleep
your face in the streetlit dark a hazy archetype,
limned closed eyes, snub nose, moued mouth
disapproving as Ozymandias
I know your lightness is inside, rekindling.
But I can’t imagine you dream of birds,
colours, stories, words, pianos
and other things you find delightful
I yearn to wake you, refind your lightness-
for this stern clone (I feel) makes me frivolous,
a brash and brazen uninitiate
in the arcane mysteries of sleep.
today, when I sang you my need
Today, when I sang you my need
it felt like I had stripped off my skin
and was offering it to you,
as a cat shows love through the killing of small creatures
and when I told you my jealousy
I felt like a bad omen,
as when prophets sacrifice
and find the liver warped and monstrous
and when I said I loved you and you didn’t turn away
I felt like I was a bar of burning iron
and you grasped me, tightly, in your thick fist
If I were a pillow
If I were a pillow
(your pillow)
I’d lie on your bed and caress you from crown to nape
my soft weft exalting your tense workday neck
In the morning you’d leave only reluctantly
and I’d bear your imprint as the day’s shafts warmed me
and when at night you clutched me, lonely,
I’d firmly yield to the lovely curve from sternum to thigh
And as you fell asleep, I’d sustain your sublunary thoughts,
and hear the zoetropic fluttering of your dreams.