Your pretty feet may touch this pavement, kiss
It briefly, skate: and you might fill my plate
With sweetness, topping up my mug with bliss.

But it’s about a thousand cups too late.

I still find it difficult to think of you living
Somewhere else completely, not even a thread
Connecting us now, not a single line giving
News of you. Here in my separate head
I sit in a black suit, endlessly grieving:
It would be easier if you were dead.

You had that look as well, which tells me stoppin’s
Not an option, when the wind blows wild
And all is changed, and nothing’s reconciled.
We fly away to other dreams & drop-ins.

But I am glad you came and took me riding
Upon that carousel, made me your clown -
And that we jumped through pictures, and went sliding
Over the rooftops of that midnight town -
And more than glad you coaxed me out of hiding,
Turned me upside out, and inside down.

Carelessly her magic rearranges
History, the earth beneath my feet -
She draws me out, then crumples up the sheet
And overnight she turns us into strangers.

Here in the aftermath, I hunger after
Someone she so briefly chose to be
Before she left inside a cloud of laughter
And me bound up for all eternity,
Not knowing if it happened through her craft, or
Simple irresponsibility.

Left empty now the life she gave
Is over, now she sends no sound
And there’s no shape to shape around
And there’s no reason to be strong, or brave:

But how this pet would pirouette with joy
Leap over lamp-posts, waggle round her knees,
Till it got dizzy – be a brand-new boy
Let out of school, escaping from deep freeze:

If only I was once again your toy
And this long absence, stripped of you, a tease.

You’re my Deep Heat, my Tiger Balm in action
Shifting all the anguish to my bum
Inside of in my head, and in a fraction
Bringing me relief, my Kingdom Come.

But other times your kisses go too deep
And they become the hurt, and not the cure
Wake up a monster better left asleep
An ancient child, lost, angry, insecure:

And there’s no pill or lotion that’ll do
To dull at all the pain of losing you.

Never knowing quite what might be coming
Next, what flock of notes would soon invade
My body with its glittering cascade,
What melodies of pain you’d leave me humming:

Not only in that room, but all around
Your music’s rocked me, and I’ve been a shell
That echoes of your ocean, though aground:
And all my whispers have one tale to tell -
How many different ways you made me sound
And held me in your hands, and played me well.

And something’s given up, and something dies
Inside that chamber, leaches from me, slips
Into the darkness, twitching its goodbyes
And then I rise again, beneath your hips:

I am your baby now: you’ve given birth -
A naked spaceman, tethered by a string
To you, my Mother-ship, and Earth from Earth -
Existing only through the air you bring:
And these brief moments in your hands are worth
Life almost, maybe, nearly everything.

O let my dreaming lie as lightly round
Your shoulders as a shawl. And let my words
Not hurt but only brush you with their sound -
Fly quickly thru your consciousness like birds
And let you come & go as freely as
My mouth allows the air, and ears do music.

I’d wait as long as a millenium
For just one look: to feel that beauty flower
Inside me, and my pain become a shower
Of sweetness falling, full & flavoursome.

O if you called tomorrow I would fly
Much faster than the very fastest thing
And drop before you on my creaking knees

Light-hearted, hopeful, less encumbered by
Those mad despairs, and happy now to bring
Into your presence only what might please.

And though I know you might have gone forever
Fragments of you glitter, sparkle, shine
Like pieces of a fine & broken mirror
Splinters of its skin stuck deep in mine:

And so I see you, just not altogether
As I always did, in little bits -
I might as well go try and trap a river
With my fingers, box up sunlight, weather. It’s
Much better I should let you slip away -
Because you will, in your own special way.