All night

the planets glow like

cat’s eyes & the moon

an orange lava lamp

holding up the black sky

If I lie

staring over roof tops

while the jumbos glide

like messengers & you out there

on the other side

call my name.

All night

I listen for your footsteps

a rustle in a hedgerow

a face across a crowded bar

a whisper to say

where you are.

All night

I’m counting empty moonbeams

reaching for you in my sleep

watching purple edges of a grey dawn

the edges of infinity

I’d lie

if I said I knew the answer

held the key, could erase

your face within a mirror

hand across a table

a kiss beside the river.

All night

while the planets glow like fireflies

the moon an orange lava lamp

all night under this black sky

I wait.

We were drunk with heat

champagne edged, headachy

moving moodily like

sugar stoked children

bitten by yesterday’s sun

skin chapped to rose

lips parched ears straining

to hear thunder’s rumble.

Crescendo of kettledrum:

clouds scurry over Canary Wharf

I reassemble myself from bones,

sleep buried.

Grass now pregnant with rain

wind weaves spells into the dusk

‘Life is sunlit’ you said as you

emptied your pockets of us.

High in the turret of becoming

I laid my heart to rest

amongst the cobwebs & the

pigeon’s nests

watched the sun slash the elliptic

like a lover’s smile.

Let it all fall away

a river to the sea

my skin not now my own

my eyes belong to years

passed by, & my salt heart’s lost

in the storm of this

relentless.

Let it all become known:

time shape shifts body

from dust to bone to stone,

we are immaterial

we’re atoms bursting into light

for one Spring second

radiant.

You who are flown

like a Summer’s day

short, sweet. I’ve borne

the yoke of it, my sadness

is divisive, it fills

the room with clouds

bursting.

Let it all fall away.

I wash my hands of you,

watch the water swirl

the last warm part of me:

tide sweeps in again & again

whispering your name

without mercy.