Never mine at first.

Teenage purse wouldn’t stretch

to polished pine, to posts.

Your predecessor, structureless,

lay low;  

squat-stained

stripy lumpen

skip-dive

dough.

 

First embrace

fur and lace

stains and haste in ’88.

Behind you lived a history

of needle-drop and resin.

Lovers lain, he’s and she’s,

night and day

dreams conceived

in somniacal vision clips.

Some stayed embryonic,

others realised.

 

In later days

a daughter moved

in me, in you; an echo, blind

unbreathing.

I wondered if you’d ever fruited cones.

Hushed within your wooden womb,

twilight dappled waiting eyes

as we two lay umbrellaed

in our umbilical

bed

 

as we two lay umbrellaed

in our umbilical

bed.