And then, abruptly, nothing | The storm stops cooking its violet | The train simmers, oil | is not enough | The dream is no longer shared among sleepers | Feathers | dither in the air, flakes | eddy and settle | around the body of the slaughtered goose, still, set to | one side a moment | What should I do? | Kiss your heels? | Stand up | in the burst of bright silence | deliver a lecture to the cows and fences? | Applaud the clouds? | Kiss | each of your four ankles, give up | waiting for the wings | to slow their beats?… | Childhood | rings us and there is a path | spongy, tawny with dry needles | under dark, imposing pines, which leads me back to my childhood | in motorcycle Arabia | and all I will lose there, suddenly | I know I must take that path, if I | get going now, the sooner | I may reach you…

Very still, like those mornings after heavy snowfall, your lungs and the backs of your eyes | lined with deep, white velvet | no choice but to love | It is decided | Your English child’s | cheeks, roses from lullabies and nursery rhymes, clouds | on the edge | of dissolving | The darkest glance | Nodding off | in a lecture on the origin of | Romance languages, safe | to do | there is so much future | But also | as your body | releases the swans and ice | “beautiful, mysterious” | a place you | stop for | no | feelings to hand | maybe with crumpled daisy chains trailed | among the marking stones, the soft | light of buttercups held under the chin | on a hot, motionless day | entirely full | entirely empty | like graves in mid-summer

Poem from distillate01, Apparent, 2020 | Available from Amazon