Masterpiece

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Martha sat up in bed. Other days the heat radiating from his skin had drawn her towards it, and thus him, but now it repulsed her. “I can’t sleep”, she repeated.

He did not wake up. He did not wake for the warm damp air, for the mosquitoes or the moths, so he would not wake for her whispers.

She knelt and drew a fingernail down from his shoulder blade, tracking but not touching his spine. Below his skin a nail-thin green line appeared. On the stem buds flowered, extravagant leaves unfurled. Martha smiled. Another jungle line crept down the other bank of his spine. His smooth skin shone.

“My body is a temple, Martha” he had said in the beginning and she had longed to worship there. Now her eyes glittered like the fireflies they had seen. In the morning he would be a masterpiece.

Moon

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Strawberry moon. Wolf moon. Honey moon.
The moon I gazed at, lightly holding your hand,
the dry grass itching through thin cotton.

Dragon moon. Splinter moon. Cherry moon.
The moon you stared at, disentangling your fingers,
the dew beginning to dampen our faces.

Cloud moon. Blood moon. Tearful moon.
The moon we looked beyond, our hands now distant as time and tide
The clouds beginning translucent the sky.

The moon goodbye. The farewell moon.
The moon of a thousand last last looks.
The moon you can see, perhaps you can see now
The moon that is forever ours.

Petros

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I am a bull in the year of the pig
Heavier than daylight and solid on rock
They may call me Petros.

Calves of bronze and heels of granite
Untouched by flames from the molten core
They call me Petros.

There is no trace of my future becoming
There will be only footmarks in the sea-washed sand
But – and but – I am Petros.

the next day the same church

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yesterday bright clothes in the summertime I cried
at the wedding of slightly known people found joy
it was her parents we knew
her parents our friends

in the church close thick heat
children playfully running
babies are crying for milk or for comfort

as he walks through the door the bride’s father is ready to burst
happy for him and for her and for hundreds
for hours we eat and we drink and we dance and we talk and we talk for hours

today dark sky dark clothes
thin rain falling
sudden sombre faces in shade

same people same church
same people in church
a deeper silence a heavier air
voices older
voices quieter
yet stronger in prayer

we say goodbye and god be with you
we say goodbye and god be with us
we say goodbye and god please help us
we say goodbye forever

Moon

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Ali stretched his hand towards the night sky and pulled down a crescent of milk-white seaglass, polished smooth by decades of waves. ‘Here is all the moon I can reach,’ he said. His lover smiled in silence, her eyes full of starlight. She touched the glass to her lips.