Last Impressions

I already miss this morning's
last embrace. I can't
remember the windscreen peeling
back like that, opened
arms of glass; only
the soft support of falling
through the gently slowing,
canvas afternoon.

From my back I see
a sky of sifting flour,
its rhythm slow as the trail
of your nightdress
brushing the carpet of that
forgotten hotel. At least
my eyes are open, I'd never
find you in the black;

when the ambulance
arrives it's night. Only
the last white shreds
are left, holding me
to the hem of your dress, before
the slick gloved hand
shuts you out forever.

Distractions

Remember when the boys discovered

that tearing off the pockets of cloth

from soft white shirts could briefly serve

to replace the further roaming needs

that stretched and tensed from knuckle to nail

before itching back to the wrist? Like thoughts

or feathers they'd fall and drift slipping

from palm to grit under tugs of laughter

and waving threads sadly reaching

back for the suddenly bare breast.

Stitched in the doorway I notice your white

and slender shirt its smooth cascade

exposed and empty serving as no

distraction leaving you; easy and open.

This Poem Is Not About Caving

There's no point in opening my eyes.

The water, ankle level down here,

laps into my boots making my feet swell.

The walls inch toward my skin,

stone encasing me entirely.

Breath bounces back

off the walls in front.

The slim space far outweighs

any effect of touching;

pressing with absence.

My eyes might

even be open,

I just can't tell.

Empty Pages

Soft and cracked your pages

sprawl with black significant

lines. Intertwining

brown stories of grease,

feathers-maps of clumsy

touches: the time you tried

to put me on your shoulders

even though I was getting

far too big to lift.

"You should play the piano"

you said "with delicate hands

like that."

Ladybirds

The scratching sound again.

It crawls into the walls

bringing in black ladybirds.

Forcing their hard shells

through the gaps, they brim

under the paper before

bursting out, into

the room. Just the sight of them,

little bubblewrap

collections in the corners,

makes me so embarrassed.

Finding them upside-down

on the windowsills, I know I am

the reason they are here.

I want to press their backs

to feel the wet insides;

I find them nestled in

the bristles of my toothbrush,

rooting out the legs

stuck between my teeth

I smear them on my lips

and taste a shame I've yet

to make. However hard I try

they will not stay away,

these black and staining ladybirds.

Lying Together

We started out the same. In equal rows,

straight and even lines, we sat. Men

on the left and women the right, shoes still on.

The dull background ache of bleach stained

the beds. Each of us divided, though

the curtains were open their isolating potential

severed us just as well. Except for the smell

the air feels more like a library in here, or even,

perhaps, a church - that nervous silence which

only the staff feel free to break; here

it's the nurses' feet, walking from bed to bed

that fleck the awkward tension with their busy,

punctual pacing. Yet even here, while I sit

alone to wait, I see your eyes have met.

By early afternoon you're sharing a bed.

It's chaste of course, in a room with twenty others

and hourly vitals checks, to fuck would be

more than impressive... or not, if you got away

with it. So instead you watch Sex And The City

and lie together on the single beige mattress.

"How novel you found each other there," I hear

your friends and family say, "that place of sickness

and death, it's ever so romantic". But as

the noise of your DVD fades to a silence

saying more than you ever could, my jealousy

fades with it, safe in the knowledge that you're

as isolated as I am, alone on my bed;

I've just given up your pretenses.

Aversion

I've spent the whole of my life so far

crossing the road and closing my eyes

just to avoid your rolling black-gummed

stare. With white-plastic fists and deliberate

breaths, I move to a point where I no longer

face your bent and twisted gape.

Strangely then, when I saw them lift

your flaccid corpse out of the road,

soft as a soaked loaf of bread,

I didn't feel the joy everyone

thought I would. As much as I fear

your unpredictability I'd be

nothing without your presence; your

empty passing reminds me of my own.