By Emma Large
Labouring against me
in the sun-sucked twilight: our coolness
and the cold empire of the cathedral, my own
hurt grating against my ribs like the pluck
of fingers down banister rungs; the image
of us is numbed in the frost, without feeling.
I sit with my books and learn how to let go.
Then I’ll let the hot rock smoke
of a cigarette lick into my afternoons,
my evenings – the salt ash ruminates
on the living room floor, puddles on cathedral stone.
The nightly toothache of yearning
will spur me to my work, to be better, to grow out
my hair: all my desperate efforts, our image
flaming to desire, without reason. I look to the church
and wonder how they bear what they bear. Their unrequited
toil, to love what is missing, an Absence so silent
they fill its mouth with their words: the hope of you
comes to me like that, so warming, so willing.