The youth was you. I was your particular.

If you could afford a runner as well,

you would pay me with a rickshaw.

Your handwriting was like Charles Dodgson's,

but I had no claim on your native tongue or tongue.

You told me that on the street you worked,

a neighbouring wine shop and gay underwear store

swapped premises a couple of years ago,

the underwear store

expanding into the larger space.

"Hear me howl," you whispered.

You were awkward. But unlike a wolf

 

you were gentle. As gentle as a canine could be.

Half an hour disappeared until you,

my wayward youth, and I, yes I, became

aware again. Then we walked your Great Dane.

When we were silent, we heard

the rattle of loosening chains.

Too dark, too wet, too late to stroll far

in pyjamas, we underestimated the night.

Still, we needn't have turned on the light to see

the stairs. And then you were back inside me.

 

 

 

 

 

I retreat to thoughts of you,

a warm cave in an unusually cold day,

when you are riding your bike

to buy doughnuts from a van.

You say your mother is also a Scorpion.

When you were small you had

delicate features and you dreamt of having

a curly beard like octopus tentacles.

The word you love most is nougat.

One type of sound you hate

is others’ lovemaking, although sometimes

they may be doing aerobics.

Your bicycles are your mistresses.

You love harmony, old phones and peaches.

If I cut through you there is cheesecake honesty,

fingers snapping to dance beats.

Are you back yet? I whisper your name

in my submissive voice but you don’t reply.

It’s with you, you’d say. My name follows

you, wherever you go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything in the world exists to end up

in a postcard, some say.

 

The empty sea on the card, for example,

reveals the thousands of ships that have crashed

into misunderstood lighthouses.

 

The dust-coated plastic flower

in a blue and white porcelain vase

shows nobody lives here.

 

But given enough time, paper

will decompose in a warm, damp landfill,

while every sound ends up

in the air.

 

Everything’s preserved: whispers, gossip,

the rising chatter

in a crowded restaurant.

 

Ever and forever, it all vibrates in the air

in a diminishing, fixed ratio

beyond the end of the day,

after we are all gone.

 

Last night, your string of strained

sounds – undetectable to

my now-submissive ear –

settled in the eternal present.

 

 

 

 

 

There are many, many moments

when such realisations occur. Some more

frustrating than others. And life is short.

 

The realisation that the things you own

(or, shall I say, the things you think you own)

bear little significance.

At least not now, not before your next

cup of coffee, your next quick something.

 

I have all these books on Renaissance poetry

but I have no time to read – perhaps

after three seasons of subtropical rain,

I'll pick them up, pick them up again, but

mostly I wish to be idle, to feel

the restfulness of an unturning wheel.

 

It's like everybody must have something

made from scrabble and I do too –

a scrabble tile pedant,

its letter has absolutely nothing to do

with my name or me.

 

A boy told me the other day,

'I would probably get jealous but not now.'

Although said in perfect proportion, it hurt.

I know, I know. He's not a thing.

 

Should I brush aside these moments, be

indifferent? I guess the best thing to do

is to tell you, you, and you, that you will have

these moments and should feel bad, too.

 

I guess I need moments like walking

through the ginko leaves.