By Toby Dossett
now the light is cantaloupe and terminal.
a city smells of rain and resignation,
lying on the grass,
unmade and unmaking
i face the cathedral’s spine
the bruised sky is left
beneath the pretext of haste,
rapture and longing,
a blacksmith’s bookmark,
those water-burning words,
shyness at newness,
an emptiness behind,
whom I cleave to, hew to,
he’ll wait a while
before he kills the light.
and politely we both
pretended, performing sincerity,
then dismantling it for your comfort.
who rearranges silence into affection?
there is no honesty left to ask for,
he’d drive through aspiration
and pretence, for instruction,
keeping us together when together,
all declarations deemed outspokenness.
angry at something
how many hours were we rain-swept?
what did he wish for then?
revealed but better hidden
during those hours when we lose interest
in what needs to be done
so, one of us became the forsaken lover
who might wave from a subtitled dream
at the outskirts of a particular kind of writing
covert during a tender alliance
like hidden stairs down into a pond.
more and more, this last look
of the forged wet
shine of the place is what means most to him.
Featured Image: Toby Dossett