Nostalgia

The pain of being welcomed home,
nostos algos,
a Swiss soldier missing the mountains,
returning to find he’d misremembered them for years,
and learning that the streets of Zermatt had changed
and that the people didn’t know his name.

A jigsaw piece in a pocket
that’s been through the wash –
you still see the picture, and how it
might once have fit, but
the edges have changed and
although you can force it into place,
it’ll never quite nestle down the same.

Aftertouch

Syncopated breath on bare skin,
the stubble below your stomach
rubbing against my palm.
Your fingers snaked through mine
like vines, a ghost on my hands.

Your words hang in pauses
where they should have fallen –
I feel them in the empty spaces
where your fingers used to fit.

Ghost-life

Ghosts in the spaces between your fingers,
where it sometimes tingles
and you feel like there’s something there.
Something unknowable, always known.

There as you make your coffee –
spinning in the cup with dissolving sugar,
waiting for you to take a sip,
they pass quietly through your parted lips.

Mimicry

I trace
the words
that fall
from your
unliplike lips

and trick you
so you think
that I
am something
else.

Wolf Affair

Let me massage you with my teeth,
I’ll break the knots in your shoulders
with the skin.

I’ll pick you apart,
lick your blood off my teeth
and pull strings of your flesh from between them.

Let me massage you with my teeth,
I’ll be gentle,
I’ll let you feel your every inch.

The Misery

What do you reckon,
can you outrun the misery?

Are you stronger than the clouds
that will smother your mouth
and claw through your pores
like acid?

Could you shield yourself from the grey
and fight through the vacuums around you?
They’ll suck you to the ground
where you’ll drown in the dirt and
feel the rain groaning
against your bones.

What do you reckon –
can you run against the misery?
Do you think you can outrun the pain?

 

 

Six-Pound Weights from the Kitchen Scales

You gasp for air,
mouth flooding with pond
which flows to lungs.
You splutter and choke
in the reed-filled murk.

Dead weights
in your pockets,
your fingers find the zip –
you leave them there
and choose to sink.

Blood-taste

An empty office, and a pound coin
pressed between her lips,
still warm from shaking hands.

Soft skin of her lips caught
between the teeth bearing down,
the coin held tightly in place.

Saliva puddles, she blinks.
A metal clatter on the wooden desk.
An empty office and a swinging chair,
the door drifts closed.

What George Saw in Phnom Penh

An arm explodes,
the tattoo splits,
and out pour ants –

they scuttle from veins,
and spaces between muscles.
They spread –
hunting new arms
to hide inside.

Edible Remains

Bins of pigs’ legs,
whole, hooves attached.
Legs stretched straight
like a dog jumping to greet you
or a person reaching high.

Legs suspended from hooks by ropes
– blue and red, like veins knotted together –
above the bar where the man takes your order.
Waiting for you to take a sip,
plastic cones hang from dislocated hips,
they’re there to catch the drips.