Paper Heart
Torn in two, asunder on the moor wind,
crumbled and craggy, patches of old misery sewn in,
stitching worries, blurred memories of women
with painted faces you regret the touch of,
you regret the thoughts you could churn up
at a moment's prompting, at fifteen.
That time when your heart was paper,
lit with matches, struck to kindling,
and I gave chase as a fire dancer,
echoing coloured ash in wake.
Open Books
Written in the sharp shapes of January sun,
cold creaking in the door frame jammed
up with memory of skin hanging lampshade,
around your darkness and water-cause
you wrote upon me in felt-fallen script.
Carved in cutlass of chancellor's pen,
a solemn look for two between pipes and
kitchen linoleum, as we looked out on
frozen farmhouse landscapes beneath Northern skies;
I wrote on you in jagged scratch.
Scissor Cuts
We fall into each other, sometimes,
as eyedropper ink in dinner guest pitchers,
when nothing so much else would do.
We cut in deeply, burrowed blades,
sharpened teeth to glint about nightfall,
some kind of feeling of something.
We stun ourselves with regret, coming cold
clean in a lightning flash, stoking over
the coals for a month or two afterwards.
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