They are the worst photographs,
dripping with vinegar and bile,
soldered to a goose-stepping yesteryear
electrically passing, draped
in slow-decaying binary light.
Insecticide in amber, grisly
tainted hollow ugly strange
isn’t it how my better angels
grow ever toward the light?
Past the six by four window
into another less favourable
time.

Blessed are the amateurs, the vanity presses,
the unkerned letters of the world.

Blessed who’ve not yet begun
listlessly manipulating English
and calling it verse;
who scribble relentless words
like quartz singing from the quarry,
jagged and still three quarters slag;
who have something to say!
who are going to say it!

They have not yet bent double
under the weight of language
and its gravitas.

Just one kiss, she whispered, this
isn’t something you’ll miss later;
if you run out I’ll give you another
and another after that;
I am rich if they are
currency.

Just one kiss, he whispered, and
you’ll whisk away my walls;
the heart connected to the lips,
when one falls the other follows
and lies at peace in your
coffers.

In the back-bending labour of delight
we warp naturally to the others’ shape:
our combined psyche levelled, graded,
weighed, and found wanting the other:
tended garden, savage wilderness,
plateau, zenith,
Whitman’s sculpted bullet points,
Cummings’ expletive pun-making,
this and this, that and that.

In that I am inert,
in that you are radioactive;
in that I am tilling,
in that you are abeyant;
in that I am weathering the trough
and you are anchored to the prow.

To the back-broke industry of joy
we crumble naturally to the others’ shape.
The measured light-year.
The unforeseen electron.

In the Spirit I travelled over a sea of mountains,
and in the midst of the fire I saddled the world:
THIS IS MINE, said the voice in the whirlwind.
ALL THIS AND MORE, spoke the storm.

In the Spirit I stole momentum from Jupiter,
and in exhausting combustion I slung beyond the pale:
THESE ARE MINE, said the voice in the orbit.
ALL THIS AND MORE, spoke the Sun.

In the Spirit I passed the event horizon,
and in the dust-bowl of gravity I became tidal:
THIS IS MINE, spoke a singular Hawking.
ALL THIS AND MORE, spoke the accretion.

In the Spirit I laid ink to a digital page,
and in the midst of the thesaurus I transcribed:
THIS IS MINE, said the plenary narrator.
ALL THIS AND META, spoke the wit.

It is a thing you drop
that falls and falls
and never quite bounces,

the form that fills
vacant seats, the voice
that speaks into a void

left spacious in absence,
pregnant with opportunity
past and still passing.

It is a thing you find
at eye’s corner after
dreams almost forgotten

that you would cry for so long
and just barely now remember.

One hand to the fallen tree
we bless the bark now curling:
planted beside rivers of water,
an old, a new song of water,
offer your laurels at the water,
the living, the everlasting water:
one springs for the fallen tree
to bless the leaves now curling:
we will meet you soon or sooner,
elsewhere in immortality,
elsewhere in dreams.

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I am taking the sky with me, wrinkled
corners dragging over stone, fresh troughs
and then fresh swells along its length and breadth.

I am stuffing the sky into a suitcase, folded
more times than I can count into
the most luxurious rectangle.

I am lugging the sky out of a trunk, trundled
by some taxi driver like a spare tire iron:
a disturbing lack of precision.

I am grinning beside the sky, pressing
the button that makes you appear.
The door that makes you open.

I am spreading the sky on our bed, finally
the work of stealing it stealing over me:
we can sleep under it tonight.

You are none of these things. moving
matter-of-factly around the room, doing
things that need to be done, dusting
cat hair and sentences from the furniture. Being
who I am, enjambed, backwards, I am weaving
a picture, almost solid, almost real, a looming
portrait of the you that is not you, feeling
that if only I could add here, something
ethereal would happen in the adding.

Finished. But something disappointing:
the resemblance, uncanny, unnerving,
unswervingly different from my leading
lady. Then, I realise, my eyes are following
you matter-of-factly round the room, wondering
when you will kiss me. What am I forgetting?
I am always forgetting something.