NIGHTS AND DAYS

Nights no longer spent together,

no more dusk to dawn events which

drew us down, hand in hand, to and

then along the promenades of sleep,

start to end, we alone, outside unseen;

no motor movements (I saw none),

save two hearts each gently experimenting,

pressing, caresssing two firm pulses

slow-waltzing together in perfect time

and pirouetting as their bodies rhymed.

 

And no more nights spent limb-locked

(so carefully done), combined with

nature’s myriad gifts to you, whereby

we both were privy to the sight and sense

of just one single form and so believed

the human mind could transport us

between other worlds of different kinds.

We never thought we might in consequence

be reproduced, foam-flecked, infinitely,

and so atomise a perfect alchemy.

 

And denied such nights’ nourishment

that held the days, and us, together,

how and where are this denuded pair

now juxtaposed, how abuts the one

upon the other?  It’s not hard to sit and see

when we appear as circus clowns extolling

once upon a time lives written for those

who could watch them daily and loudly exclaim

that everlasting love by rights should be free

just as spring banished winter quite effortlessly.

 

There lies a sore, itching sadness

somewhere deep inside my emptied chest

which grows each day I wake after

sleep that needs a different name – so as

not to confuse, not to abuse true sleep –

sleep that once refreshed the team, the town,

the doyens of which might, unaware,

vicariously breathe the cool, clean air blown

round the numbed heads of the guileless few –

whose slumber I’d kill for to share with you.