Space Hopper

When I was young I had certain ideas about the penis.

What it should look like. A heavy slung thing like an elephant’s trunk

Which would inflate very slowly, and silently

Dark, ruddy colours

Slightly monstrous, off-putting.

Your cock is like a work of art.

No strange ruddiness here, smooth pale and rosy pink-purples

Like a princess’ rain-jacket.

At first quiet and modest

And then later a stately dance

A waltz, 

one-two-three, one-two-three,

Sweeping asymmetrically up your thigh

Loosely stuck there

back between the legs, wobbling

Springing like a space-hopper

You are 
Just walking to the curtains

And it’s a 50's dance hall down there.

It twitches

Knock-knock

Against my pelvis.
Not demanding, nor persistent

Your expression serene

I smile at your eyes

And let each of you

Take different parts of me

To the floor.

What fish are you?

What fish are you?

Are you this autumn-yellow tree?

Or the bank of dark clouds,

across the car park?

I’m blindfolded. I grope and pin at you

This, a red shoelace,

This, a rosette, pink heart

This, an image of a studio flat

Nobody to tell me I missed the spot, yet

Or hit, stick.

The heart

the hungry bugger

Becomes a hot mess, preoccupied,

Fed one embrace

A quiet moment sharing grapes

And the dark, beautiful city

                the people flickering through the streets

Oh to stop the slipperiness.

I am the timer, ticking on the kitchen counter.

Are you rising

in the oven?

Ode to my young lover

You are a young man, and you love me.

I love you, at nearly 30.

You lay on me brash and casual

Loving me gaily, freely, joyfully. Playful,

With nearly a decade of potential between us.

Like a charge, a time-bomb.

Built into the very fibres of you

Soft, pliable.

I look at myself, carved and etched.

Nearly a decade

In stark relief.

When you hold me,

And I see how fragile it is

That our worlds meet.

It’s as if everything is already lost

My arms the orb of an oracle

You are not looking for someone to die with.

Who am I, to even make you think of your own death?

I thought I knew most ways to love.

Bedsheets

That hot summer

We worked hard, sweating:

Darker patches

on dark sheets.

When you are away,

I clean them solemnly;

Scent them, and the pillows

Where we breathed together, hard.

Smoothing each surface, neatly.

If we are one – which,

As much as anything,

We surely are –

This fabric is our skin,

Vessel, shell, interface

With a Universe, playground,

Quarry

Where we know how to play

And toil.

The man who taught me to love again

The man who taught me to love again

Looks at me and his face

Is as clear and open as a lily.

I think weakly:

I am glad I have this body

Any, body.

Transformed, I do not recognise myself.

I do not need to recognise myself.

I am released.

Tree

Asked what tree you would be,

You chose your native Norway Pine

Sometimes called Scots Pine

Always deep, blue-green over darkness.

But my love, to me you would be the Sycamore

And you would line my long walk home.

Spring

Springtime,

And there are flowers on the trees.

White, and pink.

My love,

In my darker times

I am contracted

To almost nothing.

To almost nothing.

And still, you can raise me

Bright, awakening

With purpose and essence, again

And not finished; no.

If I stretch up high enough

I can almost see

You standing by me

And many other things too

I look down.

‘Enough’. You tug me to the light.

Your long, human torso is proud with it.

Enoughness