End

The clock whirs in its case. This crazy dark
Leaps with energy as I heave a side,
Sweeping the septic sheets into a mark
Of sound. I’m trapped in the mesh of a net.
What lies between us, a chasm as wide
As this city? Every chance, each hot fear
Dances, explicit as an unpaid debt.
Crouching, I explode the sheets in my ear.

I remember. Determined at your dusting

You were moving flat and in a conscience
Had scattered the place. I libelled the rusting
Cooker: you grinned, in a mock rage straightened
To cow my eye; but you rattled the fence;
Cataracts of custom fell, and your face
Was open; we hung; what had we frightened?
It was my move, sweat on my back like lace.

You on a bed! Those tumbles which surprised

Us; daft squeaky moments pulling a gasp
From tight ribs. A word in the gut survived:
You turned the blush of your body as doubt
Gagged my throat; I leant; your eye was a wasp
Active in its lid. Now the sheet above
My hairless chest chuckles and hisses out
The lonely times we managed a sort of love.

A siren screams like a drill. In the far

Night a flightpath mumbles fretfully                                                       
Beyond the frantic buzz of lights which mar
The silence, stalking the empty streets. Love
Is this – each pore a crater as I lie
Picking faults like grit in the bed. I suppose
There’s an end, a settling, like the sift of
A wave leaving its sound after its loss.

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© circa 1973-76