Spacedog

it’s not that there aren’t enough words. it’s that there aren’t enough informal phrases.

if i wanted, i could attempt to pour myself out to the people i care about in the tried and tested ways of a poet — tell them what they mean to me in the moment, in that chair, in this room, in a burst of molten deliverance. but that’s not really what i want. what i want is a more casual way of saying: ‘you’re wonderful; i wish you’d stay.’ but instead i say 

‘thanks very much,’ / ‘see you tomorrow,’ /

spend the remaining day wondering 

if they too were teetering on the brink

 of lava, but just stopped themselves at the volcano’s edge           

recommended for you: a video of laika.

spacedog, never returned. 

tongue out, smiling in black and white

sitting in what she thinks is a bed.

mooncalf. heading out, not heading home

on my phone, two minutes in before i stopped.

the type of cry that, when you lie on your back,

fills your ears with tears. ears two wishing

wells, filling, brimming, welling up. achythroat.

throw no coins to me; i cannot spend them.

the stars look very different today.

crying is funny. for years, i couldn’t watch

the end of breakfast at tiffany’s without sobbing

for the nameless ginger cat in the rain. 

lost for only half a scene

yet so far. moonriver. wider than a mile.

i fall apart at soundtracks; i cannot tell you why.

when something truly awful happens

i’ll likely bloody die.

crying — that godawful sign of life

panic — occasional sign of love —

sparrows in their branches shrieking to each other

about the cat in the grass.

a mother’s eyes widening for a daughter’s fingernails,

turned veincoloured

one lukewarm summer evening.

hands wrapped around the steaming mug

camomile waves, breaking

against the stomachhollow, as she shakes

as she takes on the shade of a seashell’s insides.

at high tide, she walks like many girls — one hundred hers at once

innumerable; i happen all the time 

it’s asking someone to stay a little longer that’s the worst — the deepyellowcowardtype whydidiordidntisaythat. not asking them if they want to get a coffee, not making plans for next week, not going into another shop together — just asking if they couldbyanychance stay. it’s awful because it makes so plain what you want. i don’t want to do a thing. i don’t want another drink; i just want your time. i’m jealous of the hours that make up your days; i’m jealous of the ticking hands that hold you

i fall apart at soundtracks; i cannot tell you why.

if i say i have no love to give you

it’s a dirty fucking lie

i once told you that if i could get out of myself

i would run so very far. now i sit still, and now, and

now — i’d like to find a home i can take with me —

body-as-home

sleepysmiling in a traincarriage, because

i like where i’m headed and it likes me.

swans — outside the glass pressed to my head

nested by the rivers; havens in the fieldhearts

my hands wrapped round a cardboard cup

hot chocolate with all the extra toppings,

no internal mathematics

fingernails blue because i paint them so

let’s not head into the dark unknowing. i won’t

lie in a bed with an engine, no rescue plan.

i’d like to watch the stars with a roof overhead

i’d like to float up to them and back when i like

held by the earth but uncontained.

when we stumble back from the edge of the night, i wait

for you to walk ahead, and follow

like a neighbour’s dog i see some early mornings;

born last year. nosing the ground, tugging at a bright pink lead

who doesn’t know how she ends up

under the same roof at the end of each day

only that she does, each day

turn by the right lamppost to the right front door

undying in her orbit.