"Besos brujos que me matan."

We must be drunk, I think. You seem to move with your eyes shut. Four of us picking our way along the grass bank sloped over Princess Road, throats full of cackles that seem to yawn. Calling out songs I don’t recognise. We’re all around ourselves. Beside ourselves. Each step staggers. Knowing where each other is by their footsteps, their breaths, their stumbles. It is bright enough to see under the street lights but we do not look or see. My arm brushes your arm. It is a long long walk towards your homes and it passes in breaths before it’s started. You laugh and ask why I’m still here, when you finally realise.

I should have turned hours ago. I live all the way back in the town centre. And soon enough I am alone again, on that same grass, facing the other way. I return ears still ringing with night voices more than a chorus or a clamour the hallway dark around me.

Suddenly your breath the only thing I can hear. Much much earlier you leaned into me and pushed your mouth against mine, and I inhaled. And now I’m sealing windows and doors and breathing out your air, finally. And the room fills with you, and when I move my lips it’s your words that come out.

His fire tongue his brimstone throat
we were always drawn to the flame and the heat we couldn’t hold the warmth
I couldn’t ever get to hold

but more than that I am grateful

and when they become more frequent I only worry how diminished they are

or may become

There are moments that are enough, sometimes, even as I’m worrying how to prolong them

'The House'

"It grows larger
wall after wall
sliding
on some miraculous arrangement
of panels,
blond and weightless
as balsa, making space
for windows, alcoves,
more rooms, stairways
and passages, all
bathed
in light, with here
and there the green
flower of a tree,
vines, streams
casually
breaking through —
what a change
from the cramped
room at the centre
where I began, where I crouched
and was safe,
but could hardly
breathe! Day after day
I labour at it;
night after night
I keep going —
I'm clearing new ground,
I'm lugging boards,
I'm measuring,
I'm hanging sheets of glass,
I'm nailing down the hardwoods,
The thresholds —
I'm hinging the doors —
Once they are up they will lift
their easy latches, they will open
like wings."

I do not know glaukós though I am sure
I am sure I need it.

(and the grey, what to say of the grey so grey I cannot see past it

that too though I do not own I pledge to you like I)

and the words I have not shared
the words with others I am sorry though I do not regret it you can it be that
regret comes nowhere near, blue as it is

The tree murmurs to the wind and for once I sleep

I am grateful to you
to the tree to the sighs the leaves
the roots through me I would not depart I cannot depart
grounded as I am,
earth in lungs tongue to copper green and blue water seeps
through my most solid borders
reaches wells and moss and stone that do not care I thank them

depart, part, it is no matter, there is no matter,
you

you

consolation, light, I do not know I do not
think the two must be separate

I say I am proud of you
All of it passing a greater passing I could not part with
this sting of the bones
to the bones,

i am cold come indoors, inside, I miss you, love you
departures
someone is yelling once (again) into the pillowcase

I need, I let go, I need, I breathe

Yesterday. And yesterday.

I can give you only what I was.

And I dedicate to you my bones
the ribcage
again and again
a pledge brittle to the sands the winds the flesh I lean to

memories, memories, memories.
Vodka and Coke.
features were softer.
faces, face, faces.
contours changed.
you are more bones now -
a softer I, i do not know

do I miss what is passed
or what is passing