Youth

The night of the moon bow,
Like a scimitar had come silvering an arc in the sky
The night of the meteor
It burned its holy significance
Into our cheeks,
We drove round the headland, coming to the
Moon rippled rockpools, sat under the sky,
til the night formed in the reflections.

You told me you were done with him,
But if things changed – you’d be back.
That was the tenor of our logic: it was clear
on any night, that we were done for.
Though we are graced with signs
We take no action, could make
Picture postcards out of dire warnings.
I talked buoyant as bladderwrack,
of my own. The one I’d return to
For whom these months were
Preparation: they meant nothing.
I did not speak of the love he hid,
Hovering, unpropiatiated,
the carbon paper behind each thought.
We were surviving by the light
Of what was available to believe.

Youth

Let me go back. Pay heed.
See the moon’s blood cast upon
The headland for the grim warning it is
And holograph my body
Upon the rocks, dervished, conduit.
My own wild design. Let me flame
Significance to some foreign body.
Let it be known that I love.