archer

it was your archer’s shoulders
your straight shooting eyes
the muscles turning in your back

your hardest hooves
that left the deepest tracks

now you draw my wrists towards you
bow-like, bending, light
curving taught and tight
right
on target

our resolve cracking under
the tiny working bones
still working
almost implausibly

yesterday our words were crammed with arrows
and other such sharp things

so what did we miss?

knelt at your feet
with your calves in my hands
my whole world in the way I rode you in the night

my thighs crossed
like weapons cocked
always armed or aiming
for your equine heart

kitten

i will sharpen my claws on these other boys
and let them scratch my back sometimes

but i just want to rub a little against your leg
and preen for you

i slink through the days
padding quietly
all soft paws and tales

i'll meow coyly when i want milk
and nestle warm and content at night
purring in that warm place near your skin

i want all nine lives to be with you

clean

across legions of cheap shots and ash
collecting dirty looks
and second-hand smoke
like small scars
like a scratch

these are the places you refused to drink
the streets you hated to walk down
the bitumen i stumble home on
linked with the wrong arm

some nights the seaward wind
blows in too many directions
and all the places where we kissed
or stopped to hold each other at traffic lights
whistle hollow now

like muddled glass hollow
greasy plate hollow
unanswered call hollow
hollow like a lie

and lies no worse than yours
or mine
are told here

it’s easy to lose things leaning out over a bar
it starts with the tongue
brushes against the thigh
and leaves in the morning

despite your disapproval
i think you would like it here
the non-committal twang in every order
the way they wipe the tables so clean after meals

painting

the man that i love could not love me
then he fell in love with a painting

he stumbled into the opening one night
where she accosted him on the wall

arching back
stallion-like

oh
the way she is hung

her nipples point at the corner of his dining room
as she rides proudly over his couch

her face is listless and her eyes look
at no one in particular

i wander if she reminds him of me
ever

or maybe of another lover he could not love
as much as this canvas and oil

he once told me that metaphorically speaking
all i needed was someone to sit in the lounge with me

well now he has her
in this painting

and i have a kings of leon poster that i haven’t framed yet
and a black clock ticking over the mantle

ribbons

though i enfold you in my words
i cannot always find or
reach for you

tentative as autumn's cool
my faltering heart beats quiet and
intermittently for you

i cannot wrap you in these ribbons just yet
so today i will tie string around my
ankle for you

peering down at the knot
will remind me you are here

click

close your eyes and half smile
in that way that you do
one side of your neck offered to the sheets
and one side stretching for me to lick

those bracelets all on one wrist
like medals of conquests and troubles
clinking over and over
as your hands do their work

paparazzi in the dim light
click, click, click

my small tongue making you shiver
whilst we melt and sweat puddles between our skins
i'd take you somewhere pretentious
and you could take me anywhere

...but all those tickets marking pages in your books
you were always going somewhere darling
you were always going

now i just want to ride you in the morning
with your hair all scruffy like that

open the blinds
click, click, click

and then let me write a poem for you on your fridge
as i picture you running from me

milk

you had hoped I would solidify
that’s why
you did not invite
me around sooner

instead you let me curdle
and sour

but i am still tea drinking
and thinking
of you at night

even as stranger tongues
lap salted skin
and dark saucer eyes
dry

the milk, your milk
is a morning delivery
that will not arrive

attaching such sentimentality to the contents of your fridge
is just like something i would do

and you know that
i know that
you know
that i do

but it’s April now
and you’re worried about expiries in May
and in June
as if you hadn’t planned to see me before then

i crumpled like a carton
when i knew
there was no use crying over what’s been spilt here
or over you