I would take little bits of the sun-warmed life

around me

and tuck them into my breast.

Crammed behind my molars. Seep through my toes, run away; sweep away my footsteps from the sand.

 

It was always little, little:

too-thin white lines on my ankles,

knowing how long I’d have to watch the clock tick. ‘Fore I reached out, white cloth.

 

Swing my hand through the air. Ghost fingers tangle in mine, her laugh on my lips. Piece of my cornea: every suit of the shopfront.

 

(My pockets: phone, keys, my dad’s pocketknife. Couldn’t do without all three.)

 

When I looked and felt nothing but the want to kiss, to hold hands, to lie together and sleep. (Of course it wasn’t a nothing but. Not to me. Not to me.)

 

Pulled by the hand,

whispers behind oak library-shelves:

and my head hit all their laminated spines,

 

but her fingers were so tight in my curls that I didn’t much care.

 

My wife holds me like a neighbour’s baby, or an orange,

like something precious.

 

I know:

she wonders

my password-locked everything.

how my lips shape into lies when I’m half-awake. Indeed, I still do not let her wash the blood from my socks.

 

I know:

she will wait

for me to speak of it all,

 

I know:

she will not ask my heart

 

repent, repent.

 

My ears are overflowing, still. And I turn behind when we walk. So that my footprints will be wiped from the soil —

Converse-stamp by Converse-stamp.