TWO POEMS 

MY SECOND VISION OF TRUE LOVE
AT THE BANK OF A BENDER;    
WASHING AT THE END OF THE NIGHT,
WHICH IS THE NEXT DAY’S AFTERNOON

MY SECOND VISION OF TRUE LOVE
AT THE BANK OF A BENDER

I meet you in the stairwell

 

            clutching my little almanac

                        of trembling things

             leaving my mouth                   honey

                _°

Metaphor, be gone. It really

was. I despair

the parallel line of logic

                         

(pull my braid).

There was a swan, crying diamonds
in the corner, beak fluffy

with white wine and the excruciating hatred
of its secrets.

There were the house mice, being juggled by
boy-virgins and I felt

that pink, diaphanous bomb
shake the pillars of your boots.

            

                _°

Then

there was your thigh snaking mine

in that light room in Clapton    we were
drunk the light

was

filtered through colours of ocean    our bodies
switched      flipping from fish to man

all night       ugliest phosphorous, lit,

Darling you are the template I dream
Of pouring my lips unto

Batter    to    mould      before baking

Here I am with the decision of Dogs:

Come    Stay    Christ

 

                _°

‘Unengulfable desire precluding touch’, or, consider:

the inside of your mouth: part

stadium lights, part

praying mantis: consider your eyes,
wrong axes, sinking towards different

symphonies: consider, please: mouth: part me

 

                _°

dream of ten thousand guinea pigs
peeking heads through the waves’ troughs
such softness              such wet

                _°

That night was like floating but
in reverse

thinking of you between
icicles and monkey bars

each lip bringing the neon-blue
lacework of wings

towards the pressed butterfly of this
elite vacation.

I pour resin over the pirated moment.
I return it to sender,

make a paperweight. There.
There. Perfect.

I (seeping with preclusive love) shall give this creature to
the Cairenes air in which you live,

before we wake to re-fall out of touch,

yes, and yes. O whatever else?

WASHING AT THE END OF THE NIGHT,
WHICH IS THE NEXT DAY’S AFTERNOON

A foot, my own, can be either

collaborator or accessory to a cause,

especially when looming its sole
across the surface of a bath to gauge the heat.

A woman’s foot, when shed from fishnet tights, is a free fish;

a small gesticulator, circling toes to ripple.
This is foreplay to the end of progress...
Hush now; it is entering the whirlpool,

which sucks us to a refracted world.

Entering a garden, where the air writes it all down;

Nymphs, washing; sororal twins
to stiff Greek columns. Gowns as melting candles.

Exhausting to find the universal in this caper.

Psychic hygiene in a restored Venetian arch. 

Temperature is perfect. Water, perfect.
I am empty. I have killed my mother in myself.