i have a dozen knots,
eight in my stomach
four in my throat:
missing the needle’s eye,
but pricking the beginning
of a dead end.
quietly you undo them all.

i am like a red scarf
wrapped around a febrile neck,
gaps of thread leaving
holes and patterns in skin.
hurting, i am unravelling
and waiting for you
to tire of me.

ever been this low?

your nose takes a trajectory
from the white squash
of your face. washed over,
cartoon geisha

your chest’s a brick wall
without grunge and graffiti,
the boys lean on to bitch.
eyes molten

catapulting from zero space,
twenty unanswerable blanks
to your neighbour’s garden.

ever been this low?

for lin

i was:

grey like skies, prowling earth
like water quenching fire
that singed my fur, baring my teeth,
till i yelped and ran till dusk
with thunder armies behind me.

a bullet’s prerogative, hunting
invisible prey; a ghost shape
in a broken landscape,
nebulous and temporary as
weary fog in the morning.

i am only skin now.

Casanova

i am all you have ever wanted

(oh god, i am a summer night
set aflame, leaves exploding.)

i am a worm, easing and curling my way
into every inch of you
to feast on the warmth and slowness
of sleep you keep.

(sandalwood, my silent love
poured down a cotton shirt to burn.)

i am fresh meat at your doorstep,
swathed in clingfilm.
i am your sequel’s prologue

just waiting to be found and rewritten.

Prelude

without thinking, I

and you
and I
and you

and I have tasted the skin of a poisoned apple.

tiffany your voice was like a velvet dress, those
worn in monochrome films, trailing down streets
and drying up rain puddles. audrey hepburn would
wear it, your echoes in her gloves, while
sipping a cup of steaming music.

tiffany if your voice were a woman she would
taste like cigarette smoke, smiling for a sultry tune
and trumpet. while the click of her heel on black tile
might remain in my mind, she’d slip through my fingers,
escaping hotels by night.

tiffany i’m beginning to think your voice is like you.

i can chain myself to your watch but not your compass

time stops for no one
as it moves in its deliberate circle; black-shod, holding
a knife to my neck. i hate the way
my body moves in rhythm, like a mechanical puppet.

nor does the ghost train that speeds overhead, conductor
blind but speeding from
dark tunnel through piles of dead leaves;
only stopping to sever and leave hearts in pieces.