He checked his five o’clock shadow in the glass.
He checked his cupboard, and made a list:
red wine, olives, chocolate (plain),
sugar, light brown, 500g,
coffee, 1 pack, Mountain Blend.
River Deep Mountain High was filtered in,
and the light overhead deleted shadow
(making Peter Pans of the lot of them).
With Heart of Glass the first eye-contact came -
was broken, her messages were much too plain.
So hot we sleep with everything open
doors anchored with stones the beach provided
a wind that curls behind sends one—slamming
the door to—skittering across the flags
the white curtain billows into the room
as your breathing lets me know you’re asleep
from the terrace I see a sickle moon
tomorrow’s dawn will overtake and wipe
but in today’s the animated trees
emerge from night, the morning star lingers
and telephone wires against the pallor
of sky are staves, awaiting notation.
Given the light pollution
clouds and the height of the buildings
it’s all but impossible to keep track
but every so often you catch it sli-
cing open the sky and it clicks that
we’re in at the start of something.
Most symbolic of birds, our doocots survive
as a reminder of how we hungered for your flesh–
just as none of us wish to be pigeon-holed
let us watch you fly through the actual woods.
‘The deil’s darning needle’
as you once were known–
does the devil have all the best tunes
AND the glitziest clothes? Surely
this electricity conducts
us straight to heaven.
If our English-speaking light
is a bulb which burgeons in darkness
in German it's this fruit
seed and flesh in one.
How directly
we perceive that thing
whose colour has intensified to
its sole property
adjective become noun
word become flesh.
Delineating angels is a fine
exercise for the imagination
but it’s songbirds that animate
our visible sky.
I’ve seen you near the hilltop
attentive
but no panic or sudden flight
departing at your leisure
as if to say all right
I’ll keep out the way
but after you have passed
I’ll be here still
watching your descent.