Tuesday 20 September 2011

Seven, Until Eight


We slip upstairs, into the half-light dark,
leaving the tadpoles playing in their pool.
Time to be together, to shade the lights.
My patience is a skeleton leaf, each vein
frayed. I pray for peace. The Middle East
has nothing on you. And I lie while
you walk the floor, and drink, and milk
hangs at the corners of your lips. Outside
the sky is aflame. The neighbours fight quietly.
Inside nothing but your feet on the floor,
your experiments with sounds,
your mouth a new toy. Outside the
deepening dusk as day gives way
to shadowed hills. You cannot fight.
You fall like an old soldier,
surrendered to the hours, at last.

No comments:

Post a Comment