You are the inside out left hand glove

I slip onto my right hand in morning

too dim to tell what I’m doing. You do

the job. My whole body is one giant

fracture as I force it to walk on one

foot then the next in a well worn path

to the centre of our small universe.

You created me a library of leaves to

crunch through in afternoons spent on

trying to time travel without the more

conventional use of science. Science

is to be used sparingly like cocaine

or cayenne. As the rain works itself

through the little stitch holes in my

raincoat I imagine I am the water

and my body is your memory of ice

melting in your mouth after you

crunched it to pieces with teeth.

When the air is blood temperature

you unzip me and hand out my

calm disposition to children clam

-ouring in the street. We run round

together and fall down flat at the

end of the song. In this way we are

respecting the parts of our heritage

that are the same and allowing space

for your skin and my gender to fall

apart on an as needed basis. This is

the more common romantic avalanche.