We’d talked of everything but God,

love was never mentioned

as we slid to the places which hides his name.

 

You had learnt to stroke women,

undress their corseted seclusion

& we both thought we had a

 

firm grip of the situation.

 

Control passed backward and forward

like the bass beat of an elemental ritual,

it was in our bodies knowledge

 

that we hung our surrendering.

 

Fire meeting fire, sex meeting death,

& all the people that had passed through

our fingers like dry sand.

 

That night I dreamt a pulsing ocean,

flung wide the French windows to be engulfed,

in mer-men, horses swimming tidal torrent

 

knowing the room would be drowned

in salt trimmings

leaving seaweed, coloured  pictures .

 

There is no definition of a future,

by chance we met and chance

is driving the postcard where we write our names

 

in black and white for the world to watch.

 

Meanwhile my thighs hold your imprint,

skin bruised a tattoo to stay or

fade with the week’s light,

 

our feelings an enigma

where tolerance flames in

both our sets of eyes.

 

Lives unravelled like dyed cloth

spun with invisible movements of animal

longings, drying in the sun of a dawn sharing

 

on an early morning coupling

where the blossoms hide.