i)

Walking in white socks,

you watch the black dots jump

and stick, trying to feel their way

to where the blood is easier.

Somehow they don’t sting

and pinching them doesn’t crack,

instead your blood is there

on your fingertips and their legs

keep wriggling. It’s been

a half-formed day, overcast

with fire-smoke and no change,

the wind still blowing strong easterly.

Under a microscope, every part of a flea

is visible, even the sucked out

parts of you. It’s a waste,

the time spent calling images up,

trying to know, when the answer

is a can let off on a sheet of paper,

an hour spent vacuuming up the bodies.

Imagine being able to jump

twenty times your height,

and suddenly finding yourself

stuck to the ground.
ii)

Sleeping in the basement to avoid chemicals,

there’s a rustle over the din of wind,

a mouse runs across the floor.

Where there’s one there’s more.

There’s a desperation I’ve noticed

in my voice, that’s like that scrabble.

It can’t be bourn. I’m here to be alone,

away from listening to women talk to men

with high-pitched hostage gaiety

“please love me, let me love me, don’t leave me”.

In a plague there’s hundreds of you being born

and dying once food runs out

or when the whim of something bigger

decides it’s had enough.