i put on the brave face
and go about the mend.

yet still
the nightly nightmare brink,
the daily morning panic shrink

as i go around the bend.
and you,

a spectral lover in the sheets.
not here, not there,

again.

my compass needle,
skewed.

my will to love,
gargantuan

and true.

this fountain, crowned

with summer's regal splendour,

sputters on our bench.

in the shade of birds

fluttering as a sari in breeze,

you fan lashes

over impossible eyes.

watermelon bright, we go

meandering the locks

to aforetime

whilst i

slant up my maps,

tacked to plot the skies,

and am thankful

for the clarity

of our polite englishness.

and what of that constant moon,
thigh-white and breast-full?

and the prodigal mariner
adrift in search of sweet olde shores,

vexed by the springs and neaps
of seasonal tides?

our poetry is writ,
shimmering
in their relentless waters.

Clissold.

but what it is,
that salmon pink silk,

layed soft upon ripples.
twists up, orange-like

through jet-stream
rippings, butter blue

as perforations
in the clouds.

the mercury of seasons.

my map,
unraveled.

in its middle
was she there,
maiden of the globes.

her rock, sounding out
on the ice,
did unlock this city,

slowly,
like a breath.

caught in a cherub’s
compass gust,

blows me hither,
blows me thither.

till the clouds roll over
in our cups

till the tingle in your tooth
and its tinkle

on the china
till the grains of demerara are

quicksand in the sink
till then i sing

till then i think
that the scarcity of love makes a mockery of all endeavour.

i was born today

into a world i had created

in past sleep somehow

emerging suddenly from the deep

warm depths of a womb

that was yours, ours (now

defunct). and barren was i

and dry as these lips and cracked

and raw. a sour umbilical

hacked with rust and blunt

lay heavy on the floor

among the detritus of

words (also ours, once)

of this, this

so-called poetry.

I crossed the river to see you.
Wild daffodils scattered the banks,
dotted the verge with evensong.

Under soupy clouds,
sagging with the weight of March,
we waited, hands clasped,
for them to burst.