Craquelure

Perfect from a distance,

up close your face wears

faint lines of age which

others seek to mask with

expensive unguents or

cheap powder, but of which you are

proud, knowing a stylus

dropped into any groove would

replay a fine memory

perfectly.

Spheres

Perhaps Ptolemy wasn’t so wrong when

I feel some nights the

spheres within spheres, the

roiling clouds wracked by

moonlight, the slowly

circling stars and the

great red-hot iron

rim of the galaxy

rolling soundlessly

millions of miles

above my head.

Coelocanth

I can only cower beneath the

monsters chasing each other above me

so I seek out the depths where

like the coelocanth I might

never be found.

Blackboard

Night after cloudless night

pursuing Perseids draws a

blank knowing once

curtains are closed

one fiery fingernail will

scrape across the sky’s

black board.

Prude and Prejudiced

The weather cannot choose to be

hot or cold like you can, wearing

airy clothes whilst making

coffee, pretending you are

unaware of how nearly

nude you are or how hard it is to

share this space when you are a

prude and prejudiced.

Gutter

The pigeon on the neighbour roof

immobile this last few hours

blinks its incomprehension as

day collapses into the

gutter of night.

Unperceived Winds

You slept so long you missed how a

drizzly day changed so abruptly, the

concussed clouds battered aside by

winds we can’t perceive, the sky all

torn attire and blushes.

 

Stone

The Sun set like a stone

rippling the calm sky.

Scents and Sensibility

It only takes a light drizzle to

ignite the garden smells

wriggling through the open door to

meet the slowly-maturing scent of a

leg of lamb roasting full of

garlic and rosemary.

 

Tonight we will eat our fill, the

tang of mint already on my tongue, and

tomorrow, I just know, there will be a

sudden rash of roses.

Causal Sex

That first time when we had

just been introduced and we found

so many things we both loved and

couldn’t stop talking so that

when you were about to leave I found the

courage to ask you to

that party up in the hills where we

kissed in the dark garden

left quietly

kissed madly on my friend’s sofa

your breasts bare but your

hand stopping mine

your libertine self for the first time

knowing this shouldn’t just be

casual sex.