Drenched in Christmas bells
And the stench of hot dogs
In a overcrowded Christmas Market
Our 15th meet up
Came three weeks later
And two after getting dumped
(long story)
across the road from
Manchester Cathedral
Where after a row
With an now ex friend
You rang me up saying
‘I’m off to a Piano concert,
I’ve got a spare ticket’
Diploidic across the silence
Knowing I was crushed
Beyond words,

Swathing across uneasy waters

Turned over half ripped
Out pages

Blowing keys
Across a darkening light
As bewilding
As silence
Crushing coastlines
Blew sidewards across cliffs

Shot with regret
Across my hackneyed heart
Covered in tidal mud

In the space of heartbeats
As you held my hand
And said
‘she was never good enough
for you’

clearing the sadness
from each one of my strides
with each stroke
of his piano.