Exchanging names like strangers

in a lifeboat. You say to me

“Let’s sleep for half an hour.”
Laughing as you reach beneath my t-shirt. 
There is nowhere I can go now.

I jump forward in time from moon

to core to nebula. 
A face I could not reconcile

with all those drinks I longed to taste

just once with you. Your face

was something new to taste.
To hold you near was something new,

a kind of mild celebrity. The subject changed

from day to day, the things we knew.

The things we did not know.
I never knew the proper form, your lips were full

of things to sell. But what was that?

I couldn’t say. 
The prototype you hung to dry

so many brawne girls gleaming white.

Each part of you was brawne itself

your colour and your apple scent.
I never caught you in a line at sea or under

amber skies; we never spoke of it at all.

Your body slipped through every sign.
Sometimes you seemed a different brawne

your skin and hair and eyes would change

and I’d not recognise the title of that song

you’d hum quite tunelessly.
You’d smile and there was nothing

I could place between. No arcady or temple glade

no Beatles B side ‘Thank You Girl’,

no crass electric century, the waking dream

you left behind.
How simple then, this action hardly noticed

by an unrewarded glance, made sense.

Mere minutes spent alone with you

I would defend most savagely.
To watch you sleep, your neckline full of sun

not watching you at all, no time to see

this turn from truth to beauty with forgetfulness.
Full brawne and lovely with your laugh

an opening or a closing scene, one day

so full of heat, where we would always lie 
by swimmers till the end of day.
In carnivorous winter, inhaling

the airwaves like smoke and a smell

of leaves there’s no reason to think

that the night is so still and so small;

you carried me here in your jaws

and once I felt your teeth in me.

Soft as applause.
A violet fuzz that’s so hot in the rain.

I am no stranger to the moon’s extinctions

soaked to the cotton bone, as eyes

ignite so ardent and bewildered.
Only dizzy with your tongue and tiger’s mouth.
In white dressing gown

she curls her hair, and talks

to me. 
The moon shifts orbit by a shadow’s length.

Looks out of place.
And I like

to know that there is nothing

I can say.
A small flame falling through

a darkened library.
‘So many unsolved mysteries’

thought Philip  Marlowe quietly.
And I like the way all things

come to an end outside her window.

And I like the way she takes

her time to tell me where she’ll be.

And I like the way she gives

herself the chance to look away.

And I like to know there is nothing

in the world that I can say.
Something that whispers

itself ‘Pacific’, or

                      the pause between,
that cheerful look of mayhem

on your face, goes on ahead

inconsequential. 
Talking on the phone, I see you voiceless

wearing the red bra you showed me

for luck or the crook of your elbow. 
How your left arm falls 
where the last word can only be languid . 
Here then, you might say, I have it.

One word that is more than to forget.

The phone that rang for me once

at 4.am. I never heard.
Humans love this new technology

that uses its ghosts with such economy.
later where people come walking

their dogs in the afternoon.

Sunshine. So normal.
It’ll be hard to find a place

to lie down with you. That’s all

I want. Wrapped up in our coats

and scarves. I like it there
where the sand is full of old sun-cream.

Bodies who have left their scents

by their side. Things that have

rubbed off and released.
Whatever you would want or would not wish

to be is here. The spoils of happiness.
The view eight stories high that shows

you traffic and a cheap hotel. An ashtray

stained with caramel, too many birds that hide

behind too many leaves.
Too much to learn from angles in the Doric columns,

corners facing corners. Maps are sold like tickets

to a murder; it intrigues you just the same,

your private theatre, confessional or bridge. 
It left no scar. It was far

too visible.
I want to be awake, when you’re awake.

I want to be asleep, when you’re asleep.

In the cold nicotine drag of Monday

I want to taste the coffee when you taste it,

to hear the traffic argue when you do.

I want to move alone through an empty room

and make myself a mask of calm prepared

to meet you. I am never prepared to meet you.

I want to put my body between you on

the subway when the people stare.

I want them to stare at me. I want to stare

them down for you. I want to feel tired

and satisfied when you feel the day is one

long bus ride. 
Today she is different wearing

the same colours she was wearing

yesterday. She has withdrawn

and she has not withdrawn. I have

laughed and not made a sound.

In these moments we are both

entangled in a clear blue sky.

The beauty and the fear that are half

a person each. Buildings stand

and do not stand a thousand years

or more. The last time I saw her

there was no sun or moon.

I felt both empty and complete

with the pure simplicity of opposites.

The way I could tell her anything

and see her smiling shake her head.
I miss that old apartment and my calendar.

How many weeks was that counting the rooftops

and antennae. I liked the early evening there,

the scent of old sheets waving friends goodbye.
The bed was wide and easy to forget.

The door was strong and easy to make safe.

Woke by an aftershock one morning

I enjoyed the sole possession. I kept

it clean and tidy, smelling good. The walls

were warm outside you faded in

                                    and out sometimes.
Some nights I’d take a call and leave

to meet you by a fountain or a bridge.

Two hours on foot to cross I was corrupted

by the green glass dawn. 
Your voice was softer than your skin

with words you used and years

before that made you theirs like drinks

and chemicals and other men.
Today I saw someone who asked no questions

in whose face I saw no rain. Someone with my face

was idly checking their reflection for calamity. 
Just a perfect shave or the quizzical birdlike

gaze of an older man as I breathed out the desert.
For days I had avoided it that frozen meteor.

It hit without a sound. Five oceans rose.
I could not say that’s how it felt to me. One year

ago my life was full of echoes. You do not feel

those points of impact, worlds in darkness
worlds in light. A thousand hours to simply

walk you home.
Those thin shreds of light on my ceiling

tell me nothing that I don’t already know.

She is there behind the window and the wall
rolling it round like the world

between my fingers or the cigarette

you let me place between your lips.