One whole year's

time emptied

Like lace leaves

From the cold trees

Skeletal wisps

You are missing 

attic tinsel 

Boxed deep and dusting

With bristles flaking

From the broken spine

So no silver lines 

Our crisp, black-branched pine.

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Christmas fairy lights still dangle,
Plastic string of neon candles,
Hallowing the wreckage of the year.

Streaming ‘River’ on repeat
River Warbling marrow-deep

Wash away those spiteful, December bones.

From jigsaws sat on nickel knees
To whisky-nursing you in sprees,
Femurs first you left us piece by piece.

Frailty distils the waters
Trickles down through all your daughters

...

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Tired

of taming lions,

of dark, eyeless mileage,

of piloting this wondrous ark,

of you.

of dim-heart-riots

rotting fleshy timber,

of all the cages - rusting through 

and through..

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You've already left.

537 miles North of me, of us.

I'll ruffle up to join you in four (agonising) weeks 

but to my unconcerned shame, 

I'm too sad to sleep in that bed without you, too ungoverned.

Nostalgia, even the warm kind, is too much feeling for me.

Something about it has always made my lipids curdle 

and an unpleasant tickle cloud in my brain.

The street ou...

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Just the right amount of squeeze 

at my hip

of a lemon 

on the pasta we craft for each other

of the sponge he knows I don’t like to touch when wet.

A tongue, a croissant, a bottom smack, 

exactly when we wanted one

A well-timed tease, balletically treading that tightrope line 

from this now, to the next, to the next to the next please

Moments studded above our ...

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my partner says

I can’t write anymore poetry.

until I take out the bins

complete that assignment 

(for which I’m paying thousands for the privilege)

and preferably have a shower

not out loud 

but I hear it in his sighs

and the way he closes the cupboard doors

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Sister mine.

A perfect

spite-jewelled child.

Eyes and smokes

rolled, over

our shared veins.

Frayed but firm,

trapping us

in warm blood.

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First, fumigate

Your cell walls fresh-free

of their love.

Second.

Odious

poison barbed

bitter nothings

must be dumbly plucked from each pink pore,

thrown to landfill,

labelled 'Hazardous biowaste, may cause hideous burns'.

Third, make re-chaste your newly bleach-scoured bone and blotted clean flesh 

with a sore blessing of Domestos and clov...

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My mad friend,

a handful

of sequinned

wild-eyed zeal,

teetering

on bullets.

Shield-in-mind,

I should call

For backup.

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Giggles and winks at romantic excess 

The mountains seem like overkill yes

I’d said with a grin that shone my delight 

And fastened my thighs steel clam-snap tight, 

The still of his stare, blue-blazing and prised 

By billows of sun emulsified 

In bright, surf-swept skies and slick seas of cloud,

Long salted kisses, wet noses bowed, 

Collateral pass...

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