I kiss the bruise tender between sleep and poetry;
Slowly, a long sharp tusk of silence
lends itself floating –

He whose odour pacifies with
familiar reality,
Procures entitlement to the russet beauty
of a womb
where jade rabbits and jabberwockies glee.

Emptying like the ribbed sky of a setting sun,
We set the tone down
like a cup of tea, the chamomile
air futile between our phones –
we never afford to
let uncertainty peek.
We understand
the pauses
even if they hang themselves
on lapidary noose.

‘If’ is a future perfect tense
I cannot learn to teach.
You have to explain it to me
before doubt shuffles in,
its coarse, heavy night gown parched.

Drawn lips so eager to act
as wet blankets,
drunk on the majesty of false pedestals
he has spent his lifetime on.

Do you know how long I
have been trying to say:
I understand everything
your hands were praying –
When they clapped like thunder,
Spun canvases of lightning and limb,
Served trauma like carrot cakes on
a Sunday morning.

Do you know what they say,
Darling?                        Everything is present,
if only.