…softening approach to dissonance
I’ll brush my teeth in case I need to kiss you goodbye
prepare my parting words.
to be inscribed via Kafka’s device upon your chest
change my T for a plunging V
brush my hair for windsweeping effect
and trail perfume on my wrist -
you looked as if you’d let the sun
touch your skin
its pigment veered traitorously towards a summer
I couldn’t envisage
my eyes declined the heat
and my skin itched to be somewhere else
under a freeze frame of you
your hand in the small of my back
proprietarily.
Instead the goodbye evaporated
from the skin of my intent
as skeins above the rim of a coffee cup
are pulled into the air. You recede from view
out of my history
like a time traveller husband
returning to your wife in your real but parallel universe.
Taken from a selection of poetry submitted to Libros International in 2006
