Your twilight skin
so sadly missed
as I bury my lips
in sharp folds of hard, blue cotton.
My body cools
And serpent-coils
Once more,
After the war.
Like a quiet blackness,
Like a subtle foe,
Lies ticking.
Dropped but waiting, somewhere unfolding,
Elaborating <or anticipating>
I’m in that <agony of>
Single-bed-drowning again
When stretching brings me
This One Cold Wall
This One Cold War.
<that unflinching regiment>
<they stand silent as the grave>
This reminds me how much softer
Your body is than bricks and mortar.
<though even those can fall>
Somehow I know you sing
More sweetly than the sound
Of heavy-mouthed, rusting engines
<who police our corrupt streets>
And that thick breath of yours
<<the smoke
Lies more sweetly
On my lips, still buried,
I tight-shut lonely eyes
To tell myself I’m sleeping,
If I try hard I can <still> smell you
On my skin. <or am I dreaming?>
No one there
To hold back my hair
As I fell, sick and sweating
<ready for the fight>
To a foot-printed floor.
<just eleven days till my great escape>
<249 more hours of some soul destroying nightmare>
I am
another sign of you-
I lay there knowing
If I died this time
It would be you-
Just as you said,
One to put the other in the ground.
And somehow, then
It <must> just go on,
The unlucky one
To get up from the dust-
My footprints on your cheek
<from lying here with me>
I’ll leave my mark
Then leave you with
my sharp, cold sheets.
Submission Name: Colouring the Evidence
