I have flung my habit
for a calling
and nicked wine enough
for two.

Setting your marble self in the bath
I pour and remark
that I only ever wanted you
to touch me back.

The haemangioma stains slosh and smatter.
Your hair, your chest, your arms, your neck.
Your alabaster lip grinds none.
It makes no peep.

How I have you now.

Granite cannot call words, can it.

You are no longer some cool force of nature
that smiles, bored, into storms and famines
or foreign cities,
untouched by it all.

You can’t just vanish this time.
You aren’t my fit of rapture,
Or wine on the mind.
You’re just today’s catch.

And now, my rites
leech some sweat from the marble,
tears of the skin.
A crying from within.