Equating

There is the endless possibility

The open mind extends

Learning a language, or musicality,

Reading politics, your friends.

A spotless girl on the library steps is leading

A talk on ‘how to be successful today’

And the mutterings of ‘straining’ and ‘stressful’

Dissolve on the lips of the blessed as they pray.

For I too may idealise after such a disguise

That some call ‘effort’ and others just ‘enough’

And question, whether flawed or perfected

-  leaving what is believed to be love. 

Ballroom Victories

There is a cold, which cracks the ribs

From the beneath the crown

Of the human heart, and you dig deep

My love, and I feel the dull gold in my fingers

Infinitely chilled, infinitely valuable.

It is a trick, sometimes we perform

Beneath those shrill lights of the morning walk

Where lines carry their candles, arm in miserable arm

And all I see is the waves

And ask

Is it warm?

The casket of your hands, my love

The chalk, of that fine-drawn mouth

Where you talk, talk, talk.

You are a geographical entity.

Incense meshes the breath

and you come back to me.

It is on another edge I pause

Ah, we’ve been here times before

Take a long dry draw of the winter

And watch it dissipate, plate those lips

With ice

As you bear me up through this

Veritable flood of

Old hands which have shaken

More than twice.