We’ll talk later.
we get up
to alarm clocks
like children clawing the duvet,
but we have no children
to make waking
any better
than it is,
and we don’t talk
as the coffee boils
and the microwave
heats our oatmeal.
I wait for you
to be done in the shower
so I can get in myself,
shaking cold
in boxershorts,
sitting on the bedspread
bottom.
no need
for conversation
in winter
early on – we’ll talk later
when we get warm
and have something
to talk about. right now
just cups of coffee
and feeling the carpet
for my watch
and work id. making sure
I have a phone in my pocket
and that you
have enough change
for the train.
outside the window
dark sits
like a wolf
waiting to devour
and sometimes mist
comes down from the rooftops
and tears around us
like toilet paper
stuck
to our shoes.
at the train
I kiss you quickly
and watch
as you run
away. empires
have fallen
with more attention
shown them. the bottoms
of your shoes
flash white
against grey dawn
and frozen leaf-puddles.
On form rejection letters.
and what?
as if I
were some statue,
standing still
to be shot in the dark?
me, here, drunk,
manic at the midnight computer,
looking (I imagine)
like a picture
of what poets think
modern poetry
is?
I,
who have never appeared
in Kenyon
or Granta –
am I to be slapped
and put outside
like a cat? – in the sea
are creatures
who live forever;
some clone themselves indefinitely,
others never die at all. ants
are small
unchanged scurrying things
scattering like coffee beans
dropped on a tile floor – why
should it be me bent over
when I receive
another form letter
with my titles
copied in
saying
NO?
Bright green.
I’d spent the whole week
trying to convince you
that london
was flying
with wild parrots.
like bright birds
in distant trees,
our time fled
before we could
get close to it. but we got drunk
and went to comedy shows
all the same,
independent theatre
and english
folk music. trying out
markets together
and looking at art. there had been something
to us
but we’d lost it
and ourselves
in our time apart.
3 day
weekend visits
like bringing the dog home from the vet
only underlined our cowardice
at not ending things
all at once.
I put you on the train
in golders,
kissed you
in the monday morning,
cold
as blue rocks.
and I went to the park
to put some time in
before a night shift.
and the trees
were full of parrots then – bright green
and alive,
moving
in couples
against dark
london
colour.
An evening with my girlfriend
and dinner
born out an argument;
see
I made a joke
about one of her friends
who is in the middle
of another of
her breakdowns,
just as I have
many times before.
but this time
she didn’t laugh
or agree with me
she’s nuts
and the carrots were cut
with a weight like steel pistons
and the stovetop
licked hot
and fast
as an angry dog.
I offered help
and was told
I could just
fuck off
out of it;
watch tv
or go play on my phone,
just get out of her fucking
kitchen
you fuck.
plates coming down
with a planecrash
and frogs going splat out of cooking pots.
wine spilled
like run from a sewage pipe,
the cutlery
a declaration of war.
it was delicious though,
the potatoes done
just right,
but cleaning up
is something I still have to take care of.
Morning to Wednesday.
the thing is
the whole bay is sheltered. no interesting
formations of rock
brought in
by collisions
with storms. you move along,
trudging,
halfway between
a straight tideline
and a razor edge
of sea,
balanced on the part
where the sand stays walkable – dry enough
to take your weight
without being so loose
it blows.
a mile ahead
the seagulls
crowd on lobsterpots,
and a little closer
the dog
had found a crab. she jumps in circles,
barking at it, unsure of what to do. the crab
makes progress, doesn’t snap,
just walks slowly
toward the shoreline.
better this
than last time – she found a dying jellyfish
and threw up
in the car
driving home. and the flat sand
could convince you
you can see past her
from morning into
wed